The Associated Press and The Washington Post verified two allegations last week that the Biden government misleadingly used to sell its climate change agenda to the American public.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that an overhaul of transportation infrastructure to support a new fleet of electric vehicles would create “1 million new jobs in the American auto industry” Biden said his government could accomplish the feat by pledging to replace the federal government’s fleet of 650,000 cars using electric models and creating incentives and regulations to transition the US transportation infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
The Associated Press checked the president’s statement on Thursday, describing the chances that Biden’s plan would result in 1 million new jobs as “nothing certain, if not unlikely”. Many experts, like United Auto Workers, said Biden’s plan would result in a net loss of jobs in the transportation sector. The AP reports:
There is much skepticism about this statement. At least some of these new car-related jobs would come at the expense of the current ones. Automobile industry analysts do not see how a net gain of 1 million jobs in that sector can come from Biden’s plan.
A million new jobs in the auto industry is a highly ambitious goal that would mean more than doubling the number of workers now employed in the manufacture of motor vehicles and parts.
Many analysts and the United Auto Workers union, in fact, have warned that electric vehicle manufacturing is likely to mean fewer jobs in the auto industry.
Since taking office, Biden has taken a series of executive actions to suppress the development and production of fossil fuels. On Wednesday, John Kerry, the president’s special envoy to the climate, said that jobs lost in the fossil fuel industry would be replaced by other jobs in the green energy sector, as a solar technician.
“You know, you look at the consequences of the black lung for a miner, for example, and measure that against the fastest growing job in the United States before COVID was a solar technician,” said Kerry. “The same people can do these jobs, but choosing to do solar energy is now a better choice. Likewise, you have the second fastest growing job pre-COVID was a wind turbine technician. “
The Washington Post issued two Pinocchios to Kerry for his claim. He missed the claim that solar panel and wind turbine technicians were the first and second fastest-growing jobs during the pandemic, respectively. Citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Post concluded that “[w]ind is before solar energy, not vice versa, and these professions are designed to be the first and third fastest-growing jobs, not the first and second. “
Disregarding this error, however, the Post said Kerry received his two-pinocchio rating for the claim that jobs in solar and wind power could replace losses for the coal industry. The Post did not attempt to account for job losses in the oil and gas sector resulting from Biden’s executive actions. The Post reported:
For the purposes of this fact check, we are most interested in how many jobs are represented by these percentages. After all, at the White House, Kerry mentioned these statistics in the context of coal mining jobs – “The same people can do these jobs” – which before the pandemic totaled about 50,000 jobs (and about 30,000 below the surface). Could these solar and wind jobs match that number?
In short, no.
It is estimated that jobs in wind turbines will increase by 4,300, from 7,000 to 11,300 in 10 years. The jobs of solar installers are projected at 6,100, going from 12,000 to 18,100. That’s a total increase of just 10,400 jobs – leaving 20,000 coal workers still working in the mines.
Related: Biden continues crackdown on fossil fuels, plans to suspend new oil drilling licenses on federal land, report says
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