Inside Politics - February 2010

When today’s promises of green jobs meet yesterday’s policies of red tape.

by Mike Montandon

    The historical policies of many politicians inconveniently create statutory and regulatory environments that clash with their current campaign promises and pledges.  In the name of environmentalism, these politicians passed anti-business laws, which now act as legal barriers to their current campaign promises.  At a young age most of us were taught the principle of how actions have consequences, and it does not take long in the business world to experience real world examples of this reality.  Unfortunately, many political leaders think their decisions and agendas are implemented in a vacuum.  They are only concerned with how the decision affects the current election cycle or whether it interferes with their current political exploit.  Compatible policies are impossible when your positions are founded on incompatible principles. 

    The contradiction between how track record affects current political positioning is evident in today’s debate on clean energy.  The development of sustainable and clean energy is essential to the economic prosperity and independence of Nevada.  Our plentiful resources mandate that we should not continue to be a purchaser of energy but use technology to harness our states unique assets and transition to becoming a regional supplier of energy and energy related technologies.  Liberals have professed to embrace this position and continually campaign on the merits; unfortunately, their legislative track record deters, complicates or prevents real solutions for a green future. 

    Today’s liberal agenda cannot be implemented due to the legal regime created by their legislative history.  This agenda’s popular campaign rhetoric of “green jobs” and sustainable energy policy is irreconcilable with the consequences of the liberal legislative history.  There are numerous examples of how democrats have used and are using the promise of “green jobs” as foundational to their platform and central to their economic plans.  It is hard to be a serious advocate of “green jobs” when your past policies prevent their current creation.

    A liberal’s definition of green jobs actually parallels their general definition of jobs.  As champions of big government liberals have demonstrated that job creation should be in the public sector.  For them, growth is accomplished by increasing the size of government programs, thereby necessitating the hiring of more administrators to implement the programs.   When the printing presses were recently fired up to print all the money for the stimulus plan, only government programs were the beneficiaries.   So it stands to reason that for liberals “green jobs” is code language for an expansion of the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.  When a liberal stands in front of news cameras and discusses a vision of acres of solar panels, just think about how much time they have spent passing legislation preventing the economic development of these same acres or how their policies have been designed to protect the tortoises that roam these acres. In a Nevada real life scenario, the transmission lines leading out of Hoover Dam, having been in the desert over 50 years, are considered ‘historic’, and cannot be altered for the creation of solar power.  Liberals have not been actively engaged in working with businesses to figure out economically viable uses for the land.  They have been creating complex regulatory regimes, crafting barriers for entry, and have driven up the cost of doing business through bureaucratic red tape nightmares.

    The current economic crisis facing Nevada is due to leaders implementing policies designed around their political future not created for the benefit of Nevadans.  There is no better example of this blatant hypocrisy than when looking at Yucca Mountain policies.    Safety and sovereignty are two main reasons that opponents have challenged Yucca Mountain.  The basic premise being that it is not right for the Federal Government to force potential harm on Nevadans.  However, they fail to make this argument when deciding to force a system of remedy (healthcare) on Nevadans.  

    Energy policy is one of the more difficult political policies, since the decisions typically extend years beyond a political term. Technology used worldwide for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is nearly a half century old. Developing new technology might take twenty years and billions of dollars. Translated, that means jobs, productivity, livelyhood, not a stipend for storing someone else’s trash. Nevada’s future could and should involve the best minds in the world exporting technology and ideas.

    Policies created out of political expediency and not founded on established principles do not work well together.  These policies are based on the changing winds of campaign donors, opinion polls or fragmented constituencies.  When a politician has foundational principles and values they can use these to test and evaluate potential policies.  When policies and positions are rooted in common unwavering principles they are harmonious and do not conflict with each other.

Mike Montandon
Mike Montandon is the former mayor of North Las Vegas.