Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Chart of the Day: Virginia’s Clean Jobs

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

I’m ambivalent about economic studies on the “clean” economy for at least two  reasons. First, authors of such studies equate “clean” largely with “low-carbon.” Thus, a nuclear power plant is “clean” because it has no carbon dioxide emissions, even if it stockpiles radioactive nuclear waste, while a natural gas pipeline, which delivers non-polluting natural gas to replace dirty coal in power plants, is not. I give clean water equal weight with C02 emissions, just as I do for clean air, preservation of wildlife habitat and reduction of toxic and radioactive waste. Second, these studies often inflate the numbers of “clean” workers. Bus drivers and garbage men? Really?

Such quibbles aside, “Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment,” published by the Brookings Institution, provides an interesting snapshot on the continuing evolution of the economy. Over time, the economy undoubtedly will grow greener and cleaner, and metropolitan regions that can capitalize on that growth will benefit.

Among the 50 states Virginia ranks 15th by the total number of clean jobs. On a clean intensity scale (clean jobs as a percentage of all jobs), the Old Dominion ranks 36th. See the state profile here.

Within Virginia, the Washington metro area leads the way, with a clean job intensity of 2.3%, 27th out of the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan areas. With a clean job intensity of 1.7%, the Richmond region ranks 54th — although its clean job growth outpaced the national average between 2007 and 2010. Hampton Roads had a clean job intensity of 1.1%, ranking it 89th in the country.

— JAB

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  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Clean jobs, dirty jobs, big jobs, little jobs – America needs to be past the point of being picky. We need jobs of any type!

  2. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    “We need jobs of any type!” Amen!

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    in terms of “clean” – we do have more, better metrics

    for instance, “clean air” – we do have EPA standards and they are real because they affect things like new highways in areas that have non-attainment issues.

    rivers and waterbodies have standards – fish-able and swimmable and other designated uses.

    our food and medicine have “clean” standards also.

    and a slight quibble with “clean” natural gas. if you ever have a “clean” home backup generator installed, you’ll find that where you put it is important – because you do not want the exhaust from it sucked into your home.

    Oh and “clean” jobs… the cleaner that coal is required to burn – the more jobs are created.

    the GOP likes to talk about “job-killing regulations” but the reality is that regulations actually creates more jobs…. right?

    take a simple thing like a nutrition label. You have to pay someone to assess that food to determine the things that go on the nutrition label.. or state inspections for cars.. you pay people to do that and that creates jobs.

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    “the GOP likes to talk about “job-killing regulations” but the reality is that regulations actually creates more jobs…. right?”.

    No.

    The US federal government has so many regulations about being able to even bid software on government projects, I just don’t. If there were fewer regulations then I would bid and use the money I got from the contracts to hire more software developers. Sadly, I easily bid to governments in Europe. They don’t have America’s stifling regulations.

    So, regulations may employ regulators but those same regulations may prevent the employment of many, many more non-regulators.

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    so Europe has LESS regulations than the US? That’s not the typical claim you know.

    but hey.. I thought you were making software for the private sector, not govt. Now you’re talking about being just another company that depends on govt spending.

    re: regulators – when I worked for the govt, companies like Oracle and Microsoft had specialized govt sales groups that knew exactly how to be successful selling to the govt – and the govt bought tons of their stuff. In fact, the govt was pretty stupid about multi-platform licenses… until they finally moved to master contracts which allowed govt agencies to buy direct from vendors without special procurement procedures. It was/is called NMCI. http://h10131.www1.hp.com/public/nmci/

  6. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    Big companies know how to deal with the feds on procurement issues. They have internal groups and outside lawyers/consultants. But it’s extremely hard for small businesses to navigate the federal procurement waters. I know, as I worked in small law firm that handled federal procurement issues. It was expensive, and a number of clients just gave up.

  7. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Europe exists only in the minds of Americans. There are many countries in Europe and they are all different. Denmark and the United Kingdom, in my opinion, have less cumbersome government procurement processes than the United States.

    My company writes database software. It is as useful for a retailer as it is useful for a government agency as it is useful for an insurance company. We have customers in each of those industries today. We don’t write our software “for” any particular sector.

    I am quite sure that huge technology companies can afford the overhead of dealing with the US government. That is not the point. The question is whether US government regulation stifles job growth. It does. In the case of federal procurement, the rules are so byzantine and convoluted that many companies don’t see the benefit of even bidding on federal procurements. It costs too much money to hire government-specific experts, contract with government-specific lawyers and write reams of government-specific bid documents. This is not true in Denmark or the United Kingdom.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Well, all I can say is that we never had a problem purchasing most stuff, even from small companies – as long as we were not trying to sole source it without good justification.

    We’d order all kinds of hardware and software and we’d get it in a few days or weeks at most.

    The bigger issue that we eventually ran into was the Navy’s concern about network security (totally justified) and administrative and computing environments that were incompatible and not inter-operable and that became a problem with some of the smaller companies products in terms of standardization and compatibility with other hardware/software.

    The smaller companies products were usually purchased through a distributor but easily done once the distributor offered the product.

    I would say that in a place like NoVa, getting to know the Fed Govt procurement ropes would be de rigueur for businesses!

    But we always hear that Europe has all kinds of stricter standards on a wide variety of things from drugs to software. For instance, they’re giving GOGGLE and F’ACEBOOK a fit on their products and many drugs and pesticides and other similar products sold in the US are essentially banned in Europe.

  9. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I wonder if DJ’s company is destined to go similar to this:

    ” Citrix Acquires Cloud-Based Customer Support Technology Startup Beetil”

    ” According to LinkedIn, Beetil, which is headed up by CEO Dan Lee, has fewer than 10 employees and was founded in 2009. ”

    http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/10/citrix-acquires-beetil/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

  10. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    Environmental economics is a sub specialtyl all its own. ONE that everyone seems to claim to be an expert in. But consider today’s article in business day concerning the trade offs between a simple gas tax and Obamas new fleet mileage standards.

    The consensus is that an Rss is desire to avoid anything that sounds like new taxes or higher taxes we have chosen a course which is far more expensive and less efficient. Many of the arguments made in this article you have heard from me before here. That they are repeated in business day only makes them more valuable

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