Kaine to offer green-jobs plan
Clement Britt / Times-Dispatch
Governor Tim Kaine . January 7 , 2009
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Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will call today for state tax incentives and grants to promote environmentally friendly businesses and jobs.
Kaine will lay out his proposals, which require General Assembly approval, this morning in Virginia Beach, according to sources who requested anonymity because Kaine had not released the plan.
Kaine will propose, according to the sources:
Creating a tax credit for those whoinstall green energy systems, such as solar power. The credit could reach $20,000 for a business and would be less than $8,000 for an individual. Making purchases of home energy systems such as solar cells and some windmills exempt from the state's 5 percent sales tax.
Providing state grants to makers of renewable-power equipment such as that used to tap wind or geothermal energy. (Geothermal energy relies on underground temperatures to heat or cool buildings.) This would expand eligibility for a little-used program that currently offers up to $18 million over six years for manufacturers of solar-power equipment.
The proposals add detail to Kaine's Renew Virginia plan, which he launched in mid-December. The program aims to protect the environment and create so-called "green jobs."
"Virginia has the potential to create tens of thousands of green jobs by 2025," Kaine said then.
Kenneth P. Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, believes it's unwise to use tax money to promote green jobs.
That money would be better spent -- and would create more jobs overall -- if left in the pockets of people and businesses, Green said.
"I'd call [green jobs] more of a fad than a good thing," Green said.
Cale Jaffe, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, a conservation group, said he was not aware of Kaine's latest proposals but generally supported the push for green jobs.
Jaffe said he particularly supported efforts to make homes and businesses more energy-efficient because that reduces emissions, linked to global warming, from coal-burning power plants.
Kaine officials have said they also consider nuclear power plants to be green, since they don't release greenhouse gases.
But Green and Jaffe said they don't call nuclear power green, largely because the plants create long-lasting radioactive waste.
"It really depends on how you define green jobs," Jaffe said.
Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or
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Reader Reactions
TenCommandment: My grandfathers were steelworkers, as was my father; so I have no trust fund. They were real American heros who helped build this country. Tim Kaine is not worthy to shine their steel-toed shoes.
Why don’t you try some of the real Ten Commandments on Kaine. For example:
Thou shalt not kill (innocent unborn children by ripping them from their mothers’ wombs.) Or maybe;
Thou shalt not bear false witness (to the people of the Commonwealth about the need for additional taxes or about the state of tax collections.) Or how about;
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods (the sweat of the brow and food from the tables of hardworking Virginians , to buy votes from people too lazy to complete school or go to work.
Windmills, maybe, but solar power in Virginia? Huh?
Most people agree that we should take care of the environment, but we can’t be giving tax credits to the environmentalist nut cases, especially while we’re in a recession that will probably cost more state workers’ jobs. Most ‘green’ products are very expensive at the moment, and not in the best interest of anyone during a bad recession.
Here’s a real plan, Mr. Kaine - drill offshore for oil and natural gas. If we did this we’d become a very rich state and wouldn’t be in the hole $3 billion. But, alas, I’ve found a problem with my plan. You and your liberal friends would no doubt find a way to spend the money we’d make off of drilling offshore. Oh well!
TenCommandment: I’m a ‘granddaddy’, but I don’t have a trust fund. I would like to, but other people are going to take my money to create ‘green jobs’ and line their own pockets. They are also bailing out AIG, the UAW, and assorted others who don’t know how to manage their money. Did ‘Bush’s Iraq Inspired Depression’ cause people to be suckered into the sub-prime mess? Did Bush or ‘Iraq’ force the UAW to do what it did to bankrupt the auto industry? I could go on, but I’m just pathetic and sad.
I believe that the state of Virginia has enough jobs its just so many people here in the state doesnt wanna work. I mean everyone wants a perfect job and not every job is going be best because there is going be atleast one thing that someone going hate about their job.
I say we dont support the whiners not that im republican because im not but i rather support the ones that is working other then ones thats not. I mean why balance the budget for free handouts for non-working americans. Its not fact they cant find the job its fact they cant stay off drugs and alcohol for long to actually keep the job going. I mean see it as this if i have to replace someone in the job that means someone before me was sorry chimp sorry to say. Unemployment down only to those that dont wanna work but be honest Virginia has enough jobs we need to send some work to other states instead supplying for the whiners that dont wanna work
TenCommandments… show us where anyone below has used the word “Iraq.“
Then grow up.
Dear God we have to GET RID OF THIS LOSER!!!!
A home built according to EarthCraft green building standards costs about 7-9% more than a home built regularly. An $8,000 credit might work for a $100,000 home. The average new home in Richmond costs $300,000.
This is just another typical uber-liberal Kaine stunt. HEY STUPID—you don’t give tax credits when you’re $3 billion in the hole!!!!
Go do the DNC job full time right now. PLEASE!!! Save Virginia another year of your ridiculous ideas.
Apparently the person who thinks this would be a good idea missed their science classes (and lacks the ability to observe their surroundings). Perhaps we should wait until we get a half-way decent alternative energy source before tossing money at things that wont work here. Also, Kaine horribly mismanaged Virginia’s budget from the beginning. Even after raising taxes…
CUTE! WE’VE GOT A COUPLE OF “LIVING OFF GRANDADDY’S TRUST-FUND” WHINERS BELOW THIS WHO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN BLAME GOV. KAINE FOR EVERYTHING - INCLUDING BUSH’S IRAQ INSPIRED DEPRESSION. SUCKING $10 BILLION US DOLLARS A WEEK OUT OF OUR ECONOMY & SHIPPING IT TO HALLIBURTON IN BAGDAD IS BANKRUPTING US & STILL A FEW IDIOTS ARE TRYING TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES, WITH NO HELP FROM TIM KAINE. HOW PATHETIC AND SAD.
Outside radical policy from out of state left wing nutjobs dictate how I live and work in the Commonwealth.
No thanks.
I reverse my previous opinions about Gov Kaine effectively serving the DNC AND the People of the Commonwealth; Just go to Washington and focus your efforts on your new payoff job.
Leave us alone.
Tax credits for “green” energy systems? Tax exemptions for home enegy systems? State grants to makers of renewable power equipment?
After spending the state budget into a record deficit Kaine wants to fail to collect needed tax revenues or give more away? The man is certifiably insane!
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