...economists are highly skeptical that clean energy subsidies and mandates will create jobs on net over the long run. New technology that involves more jobs than the technology it replaces is likely to be more expensive. So in the absence of a tax on carbon emissions, cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels will require persistent federal subsidies, money that has to come from somewhere. And even if energy technologies become export strengths of the United States, international trade tends to reallocate rather than add or subtract overall jobs in the economy.
The same oddness as ‘new revenue’?