After pouring more than $8.4 million into bogus energy attack ads since November, the oil industry front group Americans For Prosperity announced yet another major ad buy of $6.1 million in eight states.

The latest ad is based on a set of mistruths about green jobs that have been widely debunked.

In the ad, AFP explains that “billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries,” and uses four examples that supposedly prove that Obama’s clean energy stimulus created foreign jobs instead of domestic ones.

All four examples are either mostly or completely false.

1. The ad claims that $1.2 billion is being used to create solar jobs in Mexico. This point was completely made up by a random conservative blogger and has been repeatedly called out as a lie. This $1.2 billion loan guarantee was issued for a large, first-of-its-kind solar plant in California being developed by NRG. However, the blogger falsely wrote that the money was being used to create manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

In reality, the jobs created in Mexico had absolutely nothing to do with the loan guarantee. The only connection to Mexico was that some of the solar panels would be coming from a manufacturing plant located there. And even though the source of the panels had nothing to do with the decision to issue the loan guarantee, the company providing the panels, SunPower, explained that most of the panels were coming from America anyway.

2. The ad claims that a loan guarantee for an electric vehicle manufacturer went to jobs in Finland. This is also a made up story pushed by Fox News and conservative bloggers. In fact, all of the money used through the loan guarantee went toward building a U.S. manufacturing facility.

There were some jobs created in Finland during final assembly of the vehicles, but that was announced up front in 2009 when the loan guarantee was issued. According to the Department of Energy, all of the money set aside for Fisker’s next-generation vehicle manufacturing was issued for American operations.

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It’s time to take back the narrative about clean energy.

Since the bankruptcy of a few high-profile clean energy companies, political opponents and media pundits have tried to label the entire industry a failure. This is a gross distortion of the on-the-ground reality — and it shows how disconnected people are from what’s really happening in this sector.

The clean energy industry is extraordinarily diverse, ranging from small contractors to massive industrial manufacturers. Recognizing the local value these sectors provide, states around the country are putting policies in place to attract new businesses and large amounts of private capital. And it’s working.

Massachusetts is the perfect example. After signing the Green Communities Act into law in 2008, the commonwealth has seen an explosion of new companies. There are now 64,000 people employed in Massachusetts’ clean energy sector today.

I traveled to the commonwealth with Andrew Satter, our senior video producer at the Center for American Progress, and brought back this piece from the front lines of the clean energy economy.

by Abigail Ridley-Kerr, Jorge Madrid

When Earth Day celebrated its first year in 1970, the words “green” and “job” were disparate concepts. This weekend, however, on the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day, green jobs are remaking and transforming the economy to be less polluting, more efficient, and more equitable. In addition to helping the planet by reducing pollution and greenhouse gases, green jobs also provide economic opportunity for communities of color in urban centers that have felt the worst of the economic recession.

These jobs are on the rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Green Goods and Services—defined as jobs in businesses that produce goods and provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources—accounted for 3.1 million U.S. jobs in 2010, or 2.4 percent of total employment that year. These jobs span a wide variety of sectors—including construction, manufacturing, professional services, and science- and research-related fields.

Nowhere has this growth been more striking than in America’s urban centers. According to a recent Brookings Institution report, green job growth outpaced traditional job growth at a rate of nearly 2-to-1 in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan centers from 2008 to 2010. Another study from the Apollo Alliance, the Initiative for a Competitive City, and Green for All found that inner-city green jobs grew at 10 times the rate of jobs overall in the last decade. It’s no surprise, then, that urban centers account for roughly two-thirds of green-job-sector employment.

The rapid expansion of green jobs is particularly significant in light of the country’s changing demographics. The top five urban regions of green job growth are also home to large concentrations of communities of color. According to data from the 2010 Census, people of color compose more than half the population in all five regions. (see table)

The burgeoning green jobs sector offers three economic advantages for urban communities of color:

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There were 3.1 million green jobs around the U.S. in 2010, according to new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those jobs — which accounted for 2.4 percent of nation-wide employment that year — represented a diverse range of opportunities in renewable energy, efficiency, pollution control, resource conservation and education.

But what kind of impact are those jobs having on the ground? In order to capture the importance of this emerging sector, various organizations are putting together documentary-style shorts on the environmental and economic value of green jobs.

Climate Solutions has put together a great Solutions Stories series. The Center for American Progress is working on its own profile of green jobs in key states (with more to be released soon). And Green For All has rolled out a series of stories from cities around the country. There’s activity happening everywhere — it’s nearly impossible to capture all of it.

This latest Green For All video from Kansas City shows how grassroots much of the activity is, creating real jobs that create direct local benefits:

by Jorge Madrid and Adam James

Green Goods and Services (GGS) accounted for 2.4 percent of total U.S. employment in 2010, with almost a third of all jobs supporting the badly hit construction and manufacturing sector, says a new analysis released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The vast majority of these jobs were in the private sector (2.3 million) while the public sector accounted for 860,300. While the GGS sector certainly got a boost in 2010 from the stimulus, considered the “Most Important Energy Bill in American History,” a similar analysis of the clean economy by the Brookings Institution finds that this snapshot is part of a wider trend showing green jobs is on the rise.

The BLS has also taken a stab at defining green jobs:

• Jobs in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources. Green goods and services fall into one or more of five groups: energy from renewable sources, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and removal, natural resources conservation, and environmental compliance, training, and public awareness.
• Jobs in which workers’ duties involve making their establishment’s production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources. These workers research, develop, or use technologies and practices to lessen the environmental impact of their establishment, or train the establishment’s workers or contractors in these technologies and practices. These technologies and practices fall into one or more of four groups: energy from renewable sources, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and removal, and natural resource confirmation.

The BLS spent over a year analyzing and accounting these figures, at times fighting through bitter criticism and resistance from political opponents and their supporters from Big Oil.  We suspect that we have not heard the last from them.

But for now, while many interesting storylines can be fleshed out from this new data, here are our top 5 takeaways:

1.    Green Jobs Are Supporting Two of the Nation’s Hardest Hit Industries:  At the peak of the recession in 2009, construction and manufacturing sectors reported unemployment rates of 19 percent and 12.1 percent respectively.  Collapse in these industries put massive numbers of hardworking Americans out of work, and bolstering them should be high priority for economic recovery.  We’ve see that green building accounted for 25 percent of all new construction ventures in 2010, including energy efficiency retrofits which create jobs at 3 times the rate of oil and gas investments.  Likewise, we know that 50 percent of parts for wind turbines are American-made, along with 90% percent of energy efficiency materials like HVAC systems, siding, and refrigerators.

2.    Green Jobs Out-Number Fossil Fuel Jobs 4 to 1:  CAP analysis of 2010 BLS figures found 575,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector, including extraction, refining, and other support activities – even with oil and gas production reaching an 8-year high under the Obama Administration.  Adding mining and related activities to the mix brings 2010 fossil fuel jobs to 783,000, nearly 4 times smaller than the total Green Goods and Services category.  According analysis by the Brookings Institution, green jobs outpaced the job growth in the greater economy by a factor of 2 to 1 during the peak of the recession (2008-2010), and pay an average of $7,000 more than other jobs across the greater economy.

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More than 1.1 million people have jobs in Europe’s renewable energy sector, according to new figures released from EurObserv’ER, a renewable energy tracking project supported by the European Commission.

The numbers, which don’t even account for the massive boom in renewables development in 2011, show a 25% increase in employment between 2009 and 2010, bringing documented jobs in the renewable energy sector throughout Europe to 1,144,000.

The boost in activity in 2010 represented about €127 billion ($166 Billion) in economic value, a 15% increase over 2009.

Unlike some reports documenting green jobs in the United States, these figures only include renewable fuels, heat and electricity. They do not include jobs in mass transportation, recycling, and green building design.

They show a very healthy diversity in Europe’s renewable energy sector. According to the 2010 figures, the top three sectors for employment were biomass (273,000), solar PV (268,110), and wind (253,145). The next largest were biogas (52,810) and solar thermal (49,845). Behind those sectors were ground source heat pumps, waste-to-energy, small hydro, and geothermal.

The increase in jobs corresponded with an increase in consumption of renewable energy. In 2010, renewables accounted for 12.4% of final energy consumption in Europe — up from 11.5% in 2009 and 10.5% in 2008.

And last year saw even stronger growth, particularly in the renewable electricity sector, where 68% of new capacity in Europe came from wind and solar.

Meanwhile in the U.S., the wind industry faces an expiration of short-term tax credits that threatens up to 37,000 manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs. Will American politicians work to create one million jobs in renewable energy for people like Nathan Crawford documented in the video below?

Or will we allow other regions create millions more while we look backward?

by Jorge Madrid

Another week, another misguided attack on green jobs.

This week, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is going after the Department of Labor’s green jobs training program. The program, which was signed into law by fellow Republican George W. Bush, was funded for the first time under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Issa says the program has produced “abysmal results” and failed to meet its goal of placing 52,762 American workers into green jobs. As of June 2011, the program had placed 8,035 workers into jobs, about 10 percent of the final goal. While this placement ratio is indeed disappointing, it reflects deeper issues within the larger economy, and is also based on some premature and misleading analysis.

His attacks have been nicely debunked by both the Center for American Progress and Green for All, but it is worth revisiting the top reasons why Issa’s attacks miss both the point, and the facts, about green jobs.

1. Green Policy + Green Investment = Green Jobs

Jobs are created when the economy demands goods and services; and investment from the private sector flows to the market when policy “TLC” (transparency, longevity, and certainty) is strong.  The United States has not met either of those requirements when it comes to green jobs, and we largely have our Republican representatives and their rich patrons in the fossil fuel industry to thank for that.

For one, the 111^th Congress failed to put a price on carbon pollution, which would have sent a clear market signal to invest in low-carbon goods and services like solar, wind, and energy efficiency. For another, Republicans and the fossil fuel lobby have vehemently opposed nearly every policy that would signal increased demand to green employers, including a national renewable energy standard, and strengthening clean air standards on coal-fired power plants.

Without some TLC and strong policies in place, clean energy businesses will continue to face major market uncertainty; workers will continue to find it difficult to get good jobs in the green economy; and our country will continue to fall behind in the global clean energy race.

Issa and his Republican colleagues slashed the tires of our automobile and are now complaining that the car is moving too slow.

2. Job Training Does Not Necessarily Mean Job Creation

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On Monday, the USA Today’s Gregory Korte promoted Republican attacks on President Obama’s green jobs training initiative, citing anti-clean-energy leader Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and a flawed report by the Department of Labor Inspector General. The report was debunked when it was released months ago for questionable methodology and improper metrics. Despite relentless attacks fueled by the fossil fuel industry, the clean energy economy employs 2.7 million Americans and is one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the economy.

Kate Gordon, the vice president of energy policy at the Center for American Progress, responded to the IG report and its promotion in the Wall Street Journal last October. Her response is just as valid today.

The President promised that if America would take strong actions to move the economy from a volatile, fossil fuel-driven path to a low-carbon energy path – actions including passing an economy-wide cap and trade program, implementing a national renewable energy standard, and investing $15 billion/year over ten years – we could create five million jobs in the clean energy sector. The problem? We haven’t passed any of those critical policies, meaning that carbon still doesn’t have a price, and so low-carbon technologies are competing on a playing field heavily skewed toward “cheap” and dirty resources.

Oh, and by the way, ten years hasn’t passed yet.

The Inspector General report identifies only those workers that have already been fully trained, not those who are currently going through training programs or who are about to enter into programs funded by the DOL grants. The proper question to ask is how much of the funding for this program has been obligated, not how much has already been spent, and then how many workers will be trained through all the programs receiving funds.

It is also important to remember that nearly 40 percent of those trained through these programs were incumbent workers, meaning workers who already had jobs but who were receiving additional training to become more skilled, and therefore more valuable in the labor market. Looking at placements alone ignores those critical workers.

Finally and most important, the report ignores a central fact that must be mentioned whenever we talk about any job training program: We are in a severe economic slowdown and 14 million people are still out of work! If there were jobs to be had, perhaps these trained individuals could be hired to fill them.

Let’s not forget that 8,000 people did find jobs as a result of the green job training programs. That’s 8,000 people who did not have a job before they were trained. As the Chief Economist of the American Petroleum Institute said in the Washington Post, “Anybody dismissing any kind of a job is silly.”

The bottom line is that we haven’t done the work, as a country, to pass the policies and programs that will put us on a focused path toward cleaner electricity and fuels. Until we commit to that path, clean energy businesses will continue to face major market uncertainty; workers will continue to try and fail to find good jobs in the green economy; and our country will continue to fall behind in the global clean energy race.