From Hans Bader writing for the DC Examiner.

Excerpt: (links removed)

There are only 140,000 jobs in the whole renewable-energy sector, but in a new ad, Obama is taking credit for a “clean energy industry” that has “2.7 million jobs.”  Obama inflated the number of “clean-energy” jobs by adding people who have nothing to do with clean-energy, like “trash collectors” and bureaucrats.  By inflating the total, Obama was able to paper over his complete failure to live up to his utterly unrealisticcampaign promise “to create 5 million new green jobs.” Most of America’s existing green jobs predate the Obama Administration, which did not create them: “from 2003-2010, the rate of growth for clean jobs was 3.4 percent.”

Indeed, the Obama Administration used federal green-jobs money to outsource American jobs to countries like China: “Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop” at American University.   “79 percent” of all green-jobs funding “went to companies based overseas,” with the largest payment going to a bankrupt Australian company.  “Most of the jobs are going overseas,” said Russ Choma at the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

Meanwhile, America actually lost jobs in wind-manufacturing: “Even with the infusion of so much stimulus money, a recent report by American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing jobs last year.”  (CBS News recently reported that there are 11 more companies, in addition to Solyndra, that are embroiled in financial trouble after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money; five have already filed for bankruptcy).

Obama’s mythical green-jobs are like other imaginary jobs he claimed to have created with the $800 billion stimulus package.  The Obama Administration took credit for jobs created in 440 non-existent Congressional districts, such as Arizona’s 15th and 86th districts (Arizona only had 8 Congressional districts, as ABC News noted with amusement).  The Washington Examiner noted that at least “75,000 jobs” Obama has claimed credit for are “clearly imaginary” or “highly doubtful.” Readers can view its interactive map of “Inflated Jobs by State.”

He’s going to have trouble defending this in a debate, as long as we pick someone who will go after him.

Before we look at Canada, let’s first look at how Barack Obama has decided to appease his green socialism supporters by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration rejected the long-delayed TransCanada oil sands crude project, a decision welcomed by environmental groups but blasted by the domestic energy industry.

After delaying the project past the November 2012 election, President Barack Obama was compelled by Congress to decide by Feb. 21 on whether to approve the pipeline that would sharply boost the flow of oil from Canada’s oil sands.

[…]Republicans, in turn, blasted Obama for breaking his promise to create jobs by scuttling the $7 billion pipeline.

House Speaker John Boehner, R.-Ohio, said Republicans will keep fighting for the Keystone pipeline because it is “good for the U.S. economy because it would create thousands of jobs.”

“All options are on the table” for fighting for the sands pipeline between the western province of Alberta and Houston, Boehner told reporters. “This is not the end of the fight.”

Republicans in the Senate have said they could legislate an approval of the pipeline that could get around any rejection by President Obama.

Just to be clear, this pipeline would be paid for with billions of dollars from a Canadian company based in Calgary, Alberta – the Houston of the North. They would pay for the pipeline, they would create the jobs here, and it would cost us nothing to take their money. This would not only cut gas prices for consumers, but it would help us to stop sending money abroad to countries that don’t like us very much.

How are the Canadians responding to Obama’s stupidity? They are already talking about building the pipeline to the west coast and selling their oil to China.

Canadian conservatives have no time for global warming nonsense.

Excerpt:

It is a cliché in journalism to declare metaphorical wars at the drop of a news release. In this case, it looks like war is exactly what Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver launched Monday in an unprecedented open letter warning that Canada will not allow “environmental and other radical groups” to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”

[…]Mr. Oliver took straight aim at a troubling trend in Canadian environmentalism — the foreign funding of Canadian green activist groups with the express purpose of shutting down Canadian resource development…  “These groups,” said Mr. Oliver, “seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interests to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources.”

And they pulled out of the Kyoto Accord.

Excerpt:

Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the Minister of the Environment has said.

Peter Kent said the protocol “does not represent a way forward for Canada” and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.

[…]The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.

[…]He said meeting Canada’s obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): “That’s $1,600 from every Canadian family – that’s the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government”.

They want jobs. They don’t have money to burn on a dozen Solyndras. They don’t pass job-killing regulations on energy companies.

Since 2006, the Canadians have been electing and re-electing Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. The man has a BA and MA in economics, and he comes from the same fold as Reagan and Thatcher on fiscal conservativism and foreign policy. He has no patience for leftist community organizers like Obama. The Conservatives were re-elected again in 2011, this time with a majority government. Their House of Commons is majority conservative. Their Senate is majority conservative. And Harper has been packing the Supreme Court with fresh conservatives, every time there’s a vacancy. Canada’s economy is booming. And Canadians know how to keep it booming – they are cutting corporate taxes to 15% – less than half of our 35% corporate tax rate. We could be taking their money for the Keystone XL pipeline right now, but we’re not, because we elected an anti-business ideologue instead of an economist.

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