Brown pushes green jobs for state
Source: Michele Clock/San Diego Union-Tribune
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown used a Barrio Logan biofuel manufacturing business as a backdrop Thursday to urge the importance of green jobs for the state and criticize Republican Meg Whitman's plans for the same.
Brown touted the work New Leaf Biofuel was doing converting used cooking oil into biodiesel and laid out his goal of building 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy in the state by 2020, which he said would create half a million new jobs.
He urged the defeat of Proposition 23, a November ballot measure that would suspend the state’s landmark anti-global warming law until unemployment declines. His opponent Whitman, a Republican, said at a campaign stop in San Diego last week that she had not taken a position on the measure.
Asked to compare his clean technology jobs plan to that of his opponent, Brown argued Whitman did not even have a goal.
Whitman has said that she would offer a tax credit for businesses that hire new workers to work in the alternative energy industries.
But Brown said that her plan would mean billions of dollars in losses of state revenue, which would hurt services such as schools and law enforcement.
“We can’t afford to do that at this point,” he said, standing in the parking lot of the business on Newton Avenue, adding that the state couldn’t “go back to the same old nostrums of loopholes, tax breaks, and the other kinds of things” Whitman is proposing.
Whitman campaign spokeswoman Andrea Jones Rivera responded by calling Brown’s plan for green jobs “fanciful.”
“He has no plan,” she wrote in a written statement. “Meg is committed to promoting policies that ensure California remains a leader in clean energy. She is the only candidate in the race who has a plan to create 2 million jobs in all sectors of the economy in the next 5 years.”
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. was also scheduled to make a local campaign stop Thursday evening at a private fundraiser in La Jolla.
www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/26/brown-pushes-green-jobs-for-state/