Jobs: Why We Can’t Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit

(FreeFoto image.)

The Wall Street Journal criticizes,

“Senior Obama administration officials concluded the federal moratorium on deepwater oil drilling would cost roughly 23,000 jobs, but went ahead with the ban because they didn’t trust the industry’s safety equipment and the government’s own inspection process…”

That, in a nutshell, explains why we can’t kick fossil fuels: they create jobs.  And no politician facing reelection can survive the claim that he or she cost Americans jobs.  That’s especially true in a bad economy, but it remains true even in boom times.  No one dares risk that Americans might be unemployed, because voters who perceive that the economy is worsening tend to vote against incumbents.

Relatively speaking, there aren’t that many people directly employed in fossil fuel production: the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number at about 242,000 in extraction (coal mining and oil drilling and pumping) and another 60,000 in refining and pipeline operations.  Out of 130 million American employees (and millions more small business owners), that’s just 2/10 of one percent.

But as BLS notes, these jobs tend to be concentrated in certain geograhpical areas.

“Three out of 4 jobs in the oil and gas extraction industry are located in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Although there were almost 1,400 coal mining operations in 26 States in 2007, over two-thirds of all coal mines, and over half of all mine employees, were located in just three States—Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia…”

That means when fossil fuel workers lose their jobs, a handful of states suffer disproportionately.  (It should be no surprise to anyone that some of these states are among the most conservative, since they have the most to lose if we switch to clean energy.)

Most people wouldn’t vote to put themselves out of a job.  So you’ll never see West Virginia supporting a clean energy agenda.

No politician would vote to put him/herself out of a job, either, which is why, in the face of the job issue, even most self-proclaimed liberal legislators won’t support a clean energy agenda, either.