Daily Score Blog

Last Saturday, two stories about green jobs caught my eye. One was in the Washington Post and the other in the Seattle Times.  The Post article was a hand-wringing affair about the failure of energy efficiency efforts funded by stimulus dollars to create any of the promised green jobs. The Times article was a bit more positive, reporting about a training program I wrote about in a post titled Labor Sees Green Job Opportunity. The Times piece highlighted the first graduates of the program, created by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA) to train weatherization workers. But the Times piece also asked the crucial question of one of the graduates, “will you be able to get a job?”

The graduate, Ahmalik Claiborne, answered, "I'm sure I can get a job . . . We are at the start of something good." Not everyone is so optimistic. But it is important for our region’s problem solvers not to give in to pessimism. The fact is, our region is ahead of the rest of the country and getting green jobs right is better than getting them right now.

Early this week, President Obama gave a speech touting the $3.4 billion in grants the federal government has awarded to local companies, utilities and cities working to improve the country’s aging and outmoded electric energy grid. The awards will support “smart grid” technology that enables easier and more effective transmission of electricity from one region to another. One of the recipients is Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC), a Portland-based electric generation and transmission cooperative owned by 16 Northwest electric utilities. The grant will fund installation of “95,000 smart meters, substation equipment, and load management devices that will integrate electric cooperatives across four states using a central data collection software system hosted by PNGC.”

But will all the smart grid money create green collar jobs?

Unfortunately—and surprisingly considering unemployment rates—according to a recent report by the National Commission on Energy Policy, smart-grid investment will require trained workers who aren’t yet available in large numbers.

Do people notice small changes in gas prices? I've been wondering about this lately -- which gave me an excuse to download historical gas price data -- and I learned a couple of things in the process. Consider:

Gas prices changed by 7 cents per week, on average, during 2008 and 2009. Sometimes prices went up and sometimes they went down, but they rarely stayed constant. What's more, the price changed by very different amounts each week. 

Much of the most intense volatility occurred during 2008 when gas prices broke the $4 barrier and then subsequently collapsed as the economy unravelled. But even in 2009, gas prices are changing 5 cents per week, on average.

Is 5 cents a lot? The answer depends on what you mean.

As a proxy for broader ecological health in the Northwest, Sightline monitors the populations of five wildlife species. Among the species included in the Cascadia Scorecard, we track the population of Chinook salmon returning in the Columbia River, specifically measured by the number of fish that pass the Bonneville Dam during the spring and summer runs. In 2009, more than 300,000 Chinook passed the dam, 146 miles upstream from the river's mouth on the Pacific Ocean.

It was a strong showing for the fish: a 29 percent increase over the previous year and the second consecutive year of increasing numbers. Yet annual population fluctuations send murky messages about the health of the fish. Chinook counts in the spring and summer months vary by about 40 percent a year, mostly due to natural population dynamics. Only long-term monitoring can reveal meaningful trends in the population. And last year's fish count, while good by the standards of the past 25 years, is still a very poor showing in historical terms: less than 11 percent of their estimated abundance in the 19th century.

The true story is even bleaker: wild salmon probably return at less than 3 percent of their former numbers. The rest of the returning salmon are hatchery-raised fish, whose numbers are far less meaningful as signals of the region's ecological health.

Chinook salmon are an important indicator because these fish inhabit the region’s ecosystems to an extent that few creatures other than humans do:  their well-being is dependent on the natural integrity of the forests, deserts, cities, and farms of the Northwest. The largest hydrological system on the West Coast of the Americas, the Columbia River and its tributaries stretch deep in British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. So the health of the river’s signature fish, the spring and summer Chinook, tell us something about how extensively northwesterners have altered the native landscapes of the region.

Restoration of the Columbia Chinook has proceeded haltingly in recent years and many salmon advocates have been disappointed by the Obama administrations efforts to date. In particular, some worry that the federal government is not seriously considering breaching the four dams on the Lower Snake River, which are obstacle to critical upstream habitat. Complicating matters, reducing the Northwest’s greenhouse gas emissions, especially phasing out coal power, may intensify the demand for hydropower production from dams. Yet some recent research suggests that the Puget Sound orcas (which were recently listed as a federal endangered species) rely on Chinook salmon as a dietary staple, underscoring their central place in the Northwest’s ecological web.

Update 10/16/09: I've made a few corrections thanks to the sharp eyes of a reader.

Today, Sightline released a primer on green jobs called Green-Collar Jobs: Realizing the Promise. Green jobs have been a much-discussed topic here and elsewhere. But what are they? Who has them? And how do we get more for Northwest workers?

A follow up to our popular Cap and Trade 101, Sightline's new primer explains what makes a green job, how investment in clean energy creates those jobs, and how Northwest leaders can build a green-collar workforce in our region.

Included in the primer:

Green-collar jobs are those held by employees who devote a substantial share of their work hours to activities that boost energy efficiency, increase the supply of renewable energy, or prevent, reduce, or clean up pollution.

The Promise

Green jobs can speed progress on three important challenges at once: economic recovery, job creation, and climate change. This is an enormous opportunity to ease our dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels while fostering lasting, broadly shared economic prosperity for local families.

The Plan

The biggest chance in the near term for green-collar job creation is in boosting energy efficiency in buildings. This is local work that saves energy. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Focusing on training programs for workers that lead to credentials or certifications and factoring training, employment, and formal education into career ladders will help grow a green-collar workforce that gets Northwest families on a track to prosperity in the clean energy economy.

Combining work training programs in fields like efficiency retrofitting or renewable energy with innovative financing programs will supply the workers, stoke demand, and secure funding for the green-collar economy--right here in our communities.

The Prize

Applying a comprehensive set of solutions can help the Northwest lead a green-collar economic recovery. Success won't be fully captured in higher quarterly earnings or a lower unemployment rate; it will be measured by whether the Northwest increasingly offers its residents a more sustainable way to live, with greater energy independence, fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, cozier buildings with lower operating costs, and good-paying jobs that provide paychecks with a purpose for local families.

Read more about the green jobs primer; check out profiles of northwesterners joining the green workforce; or DOWNLOAD the primer now.

This Saturday, I will be speaking about energy efficiencies at the annual Wild Idaho North! Conference. Preparing for this presentation has given me a chance to zero in on the true potential of efficiencies for buildings and homes. I also used a recent gathering of Sightline supporters to help focus my thoughts. I had two minutes to talk about energy efficiency and here’s the gist of what I said

Efficiency programs and policies in Cascadia, if they are done well, can:

Squirreled away in the new census data is this: the Northwest has more bicycle commuters than farmers. Way more.

Check it out:

The chart shows the number of people whose primary occupation is farmer compared with the number of people whose primary mode of commuting is by bicycle.

Needless to say, this snapshot doesn't include the heap of people who work in the agriculture industry more generally but who aren't actually farmers. (And it doesn't count farm laborers, in particular.) There are not nearly as many folks who work in the bicycle industry.

Yet I think there's some symbolic value to my little comparison. For whatever reason, farmers occupy a quasi-mythic space in our consciousness in a way that cyclists obviously don't. And I wonder if a clearer understanding of how widespread and popular bicycling is might help change the persistently anti-bicycling policies that plague communities across the Northwest and across North America.   

As part of the Cascadia Scorecard project, Sightline monitors trends in the Northwest's economy as it affects ordinary families. With the release today of new child poverty figures from the US Census Bureau, Sightline finds that the region's overall economic security declined for the second straight year in 2008. And if more recent trends in unemployment are any indication, conditions have worsened further.

Some key findings:

• New Census figures released today show that nearly 1 in 6 Northwest children lived in poverty in 2008. Oregon reported the region’s highest child poverty rate with more than 18 percent of the state’s children living in households below the poverty line.
• Sightline’s economic security index shows worsening prospects for ordinary families in the Northwest. In 2008, the region’s economic security deteriorated for the second consecutive year. (Sightline’s index is a four-part composite based on unemployment rates, median incomes, poverty rates, and the share of children living below the poverty line.)
• Headlines about GDP dominate the news, but there are few measures of economic well-being for ordinary families. According to Sightline’s index, middle-class and low-income northwesterners have seen virtually no net progress in economic security since 1990. 
• Middle class wages have declined more last year than they have in nearly a decade. As of 2008, middle-income northwesterners earned about $3,000 less, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1998.
• The share of Northwesterners in poverty remained statistically unchanged between 2007 and 2008, yet in both years the Northwest’s poverty rate remained higher than it was in 1990.
• The most recent federal unemployment figures are a warning sign that conditions may worsen further. Mimicking national trends, each state in the Northwest saw an increase in its monthly unemployment rate – and the unemployment rate in Oregon is now the highest in the state’s history.

Read Sightline's latest analysis: Economic Insecurity. The full report is here (pdf); the press release is here.

That tingling sensation you feel isn't ordinary excitement. It's the feeling that comes from living in the Northwest -- the place that is the gold standard for energy efficiency, renewable energy, ratepayer protection, and all around grooviness in the electricity sector. As it happens, we're now entering the heady period that only occurs once every five years: the updating of the Northwest Power Plan.

In seriousness, the Power Plan might sound dull or arcane, but it's hugely important. It marks out the the enery path forward for the Northwest -- and it has a giant influence over the behavior of public power agencies and private utilities alike. 

In many ways, the new draft plan is pretty darn good. It shows how the region can meet nearly all of the next 20 year's new power demand with no increase in greenhouse gas emissions and no new fossil fuel-burning plants. But in other ways, the plan is lacking: it doesn't lay out a strategy for reducing carbon emissions. And it doesn't point the way toward phasing out the coal plants that are the goliaths of the Northwest's emissions.

The Northwest Energy Coalition -- my go-to source for this kind of thing -- has an excellent summary of the good and the bad, as well as what you can do about it. And you really can do something about it. The Northwest's electricity sector didn't become amazingly progressive by accident. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council -- the planning body that develops these plans -- actually listens to citizen input and takes it seriously.

So go get yourself to one of the public hearings:

And write up some comments while you're at it. You can submit them here.

If you're in want of more information, go to the Northwest Energy Coalition's website, where you'll find background on the planning process, as well as a helpful FAQs (pdf), a talking points memo (pdf), and a public interest statement (pdf).

At  NPCC's site you'll find the full text of the Draft Sixth Power Plan is here. And you can find a full schedule of public meetings here.

Some new-ish Census figures on commuting habits in 2008 suggest that Washington may be the Northwest's leader in alternatives to driving. Or possibly Alaska, depending on how you count.

Driving alone is still the dominant mode of commuting, but all five Northwest states have less solo driving than the national average.

When it comes to carpooling, the region's leader is Idaho. But again, all five Northwest states have more carpooling than the national average.

If Idaho's leadership in carpooling is surprising, perhaps it shouldn't be. Very often, states with driving-centric transportation systems tend to perform well on carpooling, which can be the most practical way for commuters to avoid solo driving.

But in public transportation, Washington is the only Northwest state that does better than the national average.

Washington's ranking here is probably due in large part to the fact that the state is more populous and urbanized than other US Northwest jurisdictions. Obviously, transit ridership tends to be higher in places where there are robust transit systems, which in turn tend to be located in urban areas.

I've got no big-picture analysis here, I just thought it was interesting. And somebody should explain Alaska to me.

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus bill) passed in April it included $3.2 billion in bonding authority for states in Qualified Energy Efficiency Bonds (QECBs). The QECB program was actually increased from the $800 million that was passed in October of last year. Most states and local governments in the Northwest haven’t yet figured out exactly how they are going to use this new capacity to borrow money for clean energy projects. But they know it’s a bandwagon to jump on for cost savings, energy savings, and job creation.

Here’s a quick review of how bonds work. Bonds are issued by government or a private entity and they are essentially financial instruments or loans of money based on conditions set by federal or local government. In the simplest terms they are debt, sort of like the debt you might take on with a home equity loan or a credit card. Like a home equity loan governments and businesses often issue bonds for improvements they can’t afford now but think will add benefit in the form of equity or increased ability to generate revenue. For governments there are specific requirements and stipulations about how much they can borrow using bonds and how they spend the money once they borrow it. Some bonds are issued with very low interest rates but they are also very low risk. Or the buyer (the party loaning the money) might get their return from their loan in the form of tax credits instead.

Job stimulus dollars going to Idaho mean a more than 1000 percent increase -- yep, three zeroes there -- in money available for programs to test solar power at schools, make public buildings more energy efficient, and help establish an LED (light emitting diode) manufacturing company.

The US Department of Energy is parceling out $38.7 billion in stimulus money nationwide, and the largest piece of it -- $16.8 billion -- will encourage job creation through work that saves energy and invests in renewable power (see an earlier Sightline Daily post on Washington's slice of this pie). The money was approved by US lawmakers in February in the federal stimulus plan.

Idaho, pop. 1.5 million, is expecting nearly $75.9 million from DOE for energy-related investments. Here's how the money is being divvied up: 

I spoke with Ken Robinette this week head of Idaho’s fourth largest community action agency, the South Central Community Action Partnership. He updated me on the latest work going on to spend stimulus funds for weatherization in Idaho and nationally. Robinette attended the national conference of community action agencies in Indianapolis last month where leaders in weatherization gathered for trainings and updates on stimulus funding. The news from Idaho is about the same as from other parts of the region [link]: Davis-Bacon—a measure intended to ensure fair wages—continues to be the most significant roadblock to spending stimulus dollars.

The Davis-Bacon act is a depression era law that ensures workers get adequate wages for work on public projects. Unfortunately it doesn’t fit well with efficiency and weatherization projects. Here’s why. Davis-Bacon bases pay standards on the nature of work done, and up to this point it has not had categories for the kinds of work involved in weatherization projects. Retrofits are a lot different from construction. Here’s how that’s playing out on the ground:

With loaded claims coming from both sides of the reintroduction debate, it was nice to see some good, science-based reporting from the Billings Gazette this morning (more coverage of the study here). A study by Montana State University takes a look at the wolf-elk relationship that’s developed in the Greater Yellowstone area, where wolves were successfully reintroduced in the mid-90s.

After reintroduction, elk populations dropped from around 18,000 to around 6,500. This year, the numbers are slightly over 7,000. Various explanations were given, from drought to over-hunting, but wolf predation on calves was seen as the most likely cause. However, the new study says scat evidence and radio-collar tracking shows relatively few elk calves have been killed by wolves.

The real culprit?

A new, nonprofit investigative news site officially launched this week. InvestigateWest aims to:

"provide high-quality investigative journalism about environmental, health and social justice issues across the West. InvestigateWest is a nonprofit investigative journalism studio that will distribute its work online, in print and on radio and TV stations." 

This is great news for the region given the shrinking number of news publications and the always-diminishing numbers of staff at the outlets that remain.