The Associated Press and The Washington Post last week investigated several allegations that the Biden government used deceptively to sell its climate change agenda to the American public.
President Joe Biden claimed on Wednesday that a refurbishment of transportation infrastructure to support a new fleet of electric vehicles would create a million new jobs in the U.S. auto industry. ‘Biden said his government could accomplish the feat by replacing the federal government’s 650,000 electric fleet with electric models and creating incentives and regulations to switch U.S. transportation infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
The Associated Press virtually examined the president’s demand Thursday, describing the chances of Biden’s plan leading to 1 million new jobs as “far from certain, if not unlikely.” Many experts as well as the United Auto Workers have said that Biden’s plan will result in a net loss of jobs in the transport sector. The AP reports:
There is a lot of skepticism about this claim. Some of the new job-related jobs will at least go at the expense of the current job. Automotive analysts do not see how a net profit of 1 million jobs in the sector can come from Biden’s plan.
One million new jobs in the automotive industry is a very ambitious goal which means that the number of employees now working in the manufacture of motor vehicles and spare parts is more than doubling.
Many analysts and the United Auto Workers union have in fact warned that manufacturing electric vehicles is likely to mean less net manufacturing work.
Since taking office, Biden has taken a number of executive steps to curb the development and production of fossil fuels. John Kerry, the special envoy for the president’s climate, said on Wednesday that jobs lost in the fossil fuel industry would be replaced by other jobs in the green energy sector, such as solar power technicians.
“You know, for example, you look at the effects of black lung on a miner and measure it against the fastest growing work in the United States before COVID was a solar power technician,” Kerry said. “The same people can do that job, but the choice to do the solar power now is a better choice. Similarly, you have the second fastest growing job ahead of COVID, the wind turbine technician. ”
The Washington Post issued two Pinocchios to Kerry for his claim. He argues that solar panel and wind turbine technicians were the first and second fastest growing jobs, respectively, during the pandemic. Referring to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Post found that “[w]it is before solar power, not the other way around, and it is predicted that the occupations will be the first and third fastest growing jobs, not first and second. ”
Excluding the mistake, however, the Post said Kerry deserves its two-Pinocchio rating for the claim that jobs in solar and wind could replace the losses for the coal industry. The Post did not try to account for job losses in the oil and gas sector due to Biden’s executive actions. The Post reported:
For the purposes of this fact check, we are more interested in how many positions are represented by the percentages. After all, in the White House, Kerry mentioned these statistics in the context of coal mining – “The same people can do that work” – which before the pandemic amounted to about 50,000 jobs (and about 30,000 below the surface). Can this solar and wind work match the number?
In sum, no.
Work on wind turbines is expected to increase by 4,300, from 7,000 to 11,300 over ten years. Solar installation jobs are expected to rise from 6,100, from 12,000 to 18,100. That is a total increase of just 10,400 jobs, leaving 20,000 coal workers in the mines toiling.
Related: Biden continues to suppress fossil fuels, plans to suspend new oil drilling permits on federal soil, says report
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