Categories:
Economic Education
New research: Congressional District 19 a leader in clean energy.
So reads the headline of a recent news story in the Monterey Herald.
But the first line of the story tells you what’s really true:
A study by the Center for American Progress shows that Congressional District 19 is a leader in federal investments for clean energy which Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, has helped to secure.
In other words, the study shows that Jimmy Panetta’s district is a leader in federal spending for clean energy. It say nothing about whether the district is a leader in clean energy. The headline writer, and possibly the news reporter, confused inputs (spending on clean energy) with outputs (clean energy.)
READER COMMENTS
MarkW
Dec 24 2023 at 6:38am
When it comes to green energy, isn’t attracting government monies the main business? And, so those companies and regions who are most successful in attracting that funding are actually (unfortunately) the leaders in the government-directed and government-dependent industry. At this point, it seems fairly analogous to defense contractors.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Dec 24 2023 at 7:25am
Using any instrument but taxation of net emissions to reduce net emissions runs this risk.
Jon Murphy
Dec 24 2023 at 9:56am
Protectionists often make the same mistake: they champion the (estimated) jobs saved but never look at the output
Thomas L Hutcheson
Dec 24 2023 at 4:22pm
Protectionists make a more fundamental mistake in counting the additional resource use and output caused by the protection without counting the corresponding reduced resource use and output in other import competing and exporting activities because they ignore general equilibrium effects.
Matt
Dec 25 2023 at 11:11am
Counting only the inputs and not the results is common across reporting on government. It would change our country if the results of spending was reported.
Comments are closed.