Not only are federal loan guarantees to electric and hybrid car manufacturers supposed to save the climate, they also allegedly create good green jobs. Economist Veronique de Rugy, a fellow at the free market Mercatus Institute and a frequent contributor to Reason, has parsed the numbers and reports just how much the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program each green job in the automotive sector has cost taxpayers. The news is not good.
De Rugy reports:
The DOE touted the ATVM loan program as a tool for boosting America's "clean energy economy" by adding nearly 38,700 jobs. Far less attention was paid to how the loan commitments exposed taxpayers to excessive risk, to the tune of about $217,028 per job "created or saved."
How was this dubious miracle achieved? De Rugy points out…
…the DOE reports that the loan "converted" nearly 33,000 existing Ford jobs to green manufacturing jobs. Also, it is worth noting that DOE still attributes 2,000 jobs to Fisker, even though the company's workforce shrank to 50 following the latest round of firings.
The cost per job by loan is below. Taxpayers read the figures and weep.
