Fox Business host Charles Payne's latest lie about clean energy jobs
Written by Ted MacDonald
Published
During a discussion about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s recent climate announcement on the July 15 edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered, Fox Business host Charles Payne made a very disingenuous statement that “so-called clean energy jobs are just a farce.”
This statement is utterly detached from reality, where clean energy jobs have skyrocketed over the past several years. A recent report from the environmental nonprofit E2 calculated that there were 3.3 million clean energy jobs in the U.S. at the start of 2020, accounting for “more than 40 percent of America’s entire energy workforce.” The 2019 version of this study found that clean energy jobs already “outnumber fossil fuels jobs nearly three to one (3.26M to 1.17M).” And as more and more states and electric utilities set clean energy goals, this will only create more demand for clean energy jobs. Indeed, one recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that it is possible to power the U.S. with 90% clean energy by 2035 without higher consumer costs -- if this proposal is implemented, the study also indicates it would “increase energy sector jobs by up to 530,000 per year through 2035.”
Although the industry has taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic, this is true of nearly every other major industry as well. But data released this week shows that governments are disproportionately aiding fossil fuels over clean energy sources in pandemic stimulus packages. In the U.S., the fossil fuel industry has gotten more than double what clean energy has received.
Citation From the July 15, 2020, edition of Outnumbered:
MELISSA FRANCIS (CO-HOST): The president also using his Rose Garden event to bash Biden’s climate agenda, calling it a hard-left crusade against American energy. Charles, oh my gosh, where have we heard this song before? “We are going to go to clean energy and we are going to create all of these jobs,” and then Hillary Clinton accidentally says, "And we are going to put all of those coal miners out of business." Jessica [Tarlov] is just talking about him being up in Pennsylvania. You want to kiss Pennsylvania goodbye, you unveil a plan where you are going to go to all clean energy by 2035 and you are going to put the carbon economy out of business. And that is how you lose swing states. What are your thoughts?
CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): It’s just -- you know, listen, he is riding this, it’s this amazing tight rope right now where he wants to talk about so-called clean energy jobs, and Jessica just talked about not defunding the police. I forgot the term he used, maybe “redirecting”? You know, he wants to have it on both sides and it really makes him seem like he doesn't have any firm footing or belief in any of them. But it's a farce. So-called clean energy jobs are just a farce. Under the Obama administration, if you drove a bus that used natural gas, that bus driver wasn’t a bus driver. He was a -- he or she was a clean energy worker. It was a farce. If you look at pure job creation, I mean, you can't tell me you're going to make this investment and we are still going to need a lot of people to operate it. That wouldn’t make a lot of sense anyway. So we're going to build gigantic solar farms and wind farms? That must mean that it's an investment. We don't need anyone to run it by definition. The whole thing is a farce and he's trying to have it both ways. By the way, all of this is part of the Build Back Better. When I heard that I thought Sir Mix-a-Lot came out with a new record. Give me a break. It is so dull, so boring, and there's nothing there, folks. Except a rehash of everything else. He's trying desperately not to anger AOC. He's trying desperately not to anger the Bernie Sanders crowd, and I don't think he can have it both ways.
FRANCIS: Yeah, and when I heard about that big investment -- yeah, exactly. When I heard about that investment, all I could think was he’s going to bring back Solyndra. What a great idea.
Leave it to right-wing media to mock the very successful clean energy industry.