A California law that promises to create clean energy jobs and make the state’s schools more energy efficient with the help of higher corporate taxes is falling far short of expectations, according to a review by the Associated Press.
The AP report revealed that, while the project was supposed to generate more than 11,000 jobs each year, only 1,700 jobs have been created in the three years since the law was enacted.
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Voters approved Proposition 39 in November 2012, creating the Clean Energy Jobs Act, which closed a tax loophole that allowed businesses to reduce their state income tax when they moved jobs out of the state. Passage of the law allowed the state to collect more taxes and use them to fund clean energy projects in schools, giving a boost to “green jobs.”
The news agency found, however, that more than half of the $297 million given to schools so far has gone to consultants and energy auditors, essentially support and planning services. Additionally, the Associated Press said that not a single project for which the state allocated $12.6 million was completed in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has nearly 1,000 schools.
Albert Lundeen, a spokesman with the California Energy Commission, said the project is still in the early stages of roll out.
“We put a high premium on planning, and that is because if you plan, you can find the best bang for the buck… There were specific dollars dedicated to planning early on and that is what the school districts have been using till this point,” he told VICE News.
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Lundeen’s views were backed by NextGen Climate, a climate lobby group founded by billionaire investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer. The former hedge funder turned climate change campaigner was a leading supporter of the ballot initiative, providing more than $32 million in funding.
“We have every confidence that, as more projects break ground and come on line, Californians in every region of the state will increasingly realize the full benefits of improvements that make schools stronger and more energy-efficient while building on our state’s position as America’s clean-energy jobs leader,” Steyer said in a joint press statement with CA Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León.
“Proposition 39 is already successful, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to schools and creating jobs, which we are proud of,” he added. “It is fundamentally inaccurate to draw broad conclusions regarding Proposition 39’s full impact until the program is fully implemented. ”
The AP report highlighted other inconsistencies. It found that the board created to oversee the project and submit annual progress reports to the California legislature has never met.
“Accountability boards that are rubber stamps are fairly common, but accountability boards that don’t meet at all are a big problem,” Douglas Johnson, a state government expert at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, told the Associated Press.
Oversight boards often meet at the conclusion of a project in order to evaluate success or failure. Johnson criticized that approach.
“They should have been overseeing all stages of this project, not just waiting until the money’s gone and seeing where it went,” Johnson said.
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The California Energy Commission, which oversees spending under the act, said that not enough data had been collected for the nine-member oversight board, comprised of professors, engineers, and climate experts, to meet.
The California Business Roundtable, a corporate lobby group that counts Chevron and Southern California Edison among its members, said state programs to create green jobs have been underdelivered.
Kirk Clark, a vice president with the group, told VICE News that while it was typical to incur planning costs during the initial stages of a project, spending $154 million out of $500 million on planning was “pretty striking.”
