Green Jobs Plans Inch Forward

Unemployment's continued rise is certainly not good news for Democrats, but at least today's bad news happened to coincide with the party's release of its jobs-creation plan.

Although Republicans have already mocked the brief — which is just three pages long — for its lack of details, it's significant that green jobs made the short list.

Specifically, the policy brief — which Change.org obtained — highlights "Creating Jobs Through Energy Efficiency." This is the army of caulk-gun-toting, blue-turned-green-collar workers that have long been touted — most recently in Obama's State of the Union address.

What's so great about caulking? The idea is that home improvement projects that increase energy efficiency save homeowners money while also providing work for construction workers, who have been among the hardest-hit by the economic downturn.

Interestingly, two of the visionaries behind this plan hail from Change.org's own City by the Bay: Van Jones, about whom enough said, and Matt Golden, the president of a 5-year-old company that conducts in-home energy audits and carries out the improvements.

I interviewed Golden for my local blog, The Thin Green Line. He told me that 21 percent of the United States' carbon emissions come from energy use in existing buildings — twice as much as from passenger vehicles. Retrofits could reduce that by a quarter. And, he explained, because home energy retrofits use American workers and 95 percent American products, the industry could provide a million lasting jobs.

The problem is giving homeowners an incentive to undertake the potentially expensive projects: They pay for themselves eventually, but that's not always good enough. Golden wants to see financing schemes like California's PACE bonds — which allow homeowners to pay off the cost by simply by continuing to pay the same amount on their utility bills even after their usage goes down — become standard fare.

The Senate legislation, which lawmakers will likely consider next week, offers partial reimbursement to homeowners who undertake efficiency upgrades.

The cap-and-trade bill passed by the House, which continues to gather dust in the Senate, contains similar incentives.

Photo credit: Zuzu