American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Create ‘Green’ Jobs...

CNSNews ^ | February 9, 2011 | Penny Starr

[jazusamo]

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson holds up
the boxing gloves she was given at a
conference of labor unions and
environmental activists in Washington, D.C.
on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011. The gloves mark
her fight with lawmakers who oppose EPA
regulations. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson suggested on Tuesday that American businesses with a “record amount of cash holdings,” estimated at $1.93 trillion, could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control.

Jackson, speaking at the BlueGreen Alliance national conference in Washington, D.C., cited a Dec. 10 Wall Street Journal article about a U.S. Treasury report, which estimated that there is $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets of non-financial U.S. companies sitting dormant, not being invested.

VIDEO 1:12 minutes

“Even a portion of the $1.93 trillion invested in developing and installing new pollution control technology would result in good jobs right here for American workers,” Jackson said to the gathering of labor unions and environmental activists.

Jackson said that standards and regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are good for job creation and the economy.

“The fact is that updating environmental standards, which we do to protect American families from things like mercury and acid gases and other toxic pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease, especially in children, create a good economic climate for investment and good jobs for American workers,” Jackson said. 

The Wall Street Journal article also stated the reasons for businesses sitting on large cash holdings and that those holdings are not beneficial to businesses.

“The cash buildup shows the deep caution many companies feel about investing in expansion while the economic recovery remains painfully slow and high unemployment and battered household finances continue to limit consumers' ability to spend,” the article states.

“The buildup has a big downside for companies, which get little return on their money because interest rates are low, but it reflects the relatively few opportunities they see to deploy their cash more creatively.”

In a commentary on Jan. 12 on RealClearPolitics, Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that uncertainty is the “enemy of investment and hiring.”

“The degree of change and uncertainty is unprecedented -- is it any wonder that many companies and other employers are sitting on their hands waiting to see how things work out? To know what their tax and regulatory obligations will be? To understand how new policies will impact their operations?” Donohue said.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of investment and hiring,” he said. “Through smart, commonsense policies, lawmakers can help increase certainty, especially when it comes to health care, tax, and climate change policies.”

Jackson said that despite “polarized debates” about the effects EPA regulations and standards have on business and the U.S. economy “environmental protection and economic growth can and do go hand in hand.”

She said the EPA’s “fundamental responsibility is protecting the health of the American people,” and warned against “special interests” that don’t understand the importance of that mission.

“It is important, as special interests try to gut our safeguards like the Clean Air Act that EPA has worked for and under for decades,” Jackson said. “And while special interests try to find loopholes so big polluters can skirt other common sense health protections.

“It is important to recognize these possibilities at a time when American companies have a record amount of cash holdings and liquid assets,” Jackson said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, among those companies with the top cash and liquid assets are Microsoft Corp., with $43.25 billion in cash and short-term investments; Cisco Systems Inc. with $38.9 billion; and Google Inc. with $33.4 billion.

[jazusamo]

American businesses with a “record amount of cash holdings,” estimated at $1.93 trillion, could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control.

Lisa Jackson speaks like a true socialist in parroting her boss in support of unions.

[jazusamo]

Complete title: American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Create ‘Green’ Jobs, Suggests EPA’s Lisa Jackson

[Fido969]

lisa jackson can spend as much of her own money as she wants on green jobs.

[Uri’el-2012]

Why would business want to pour money down a green Rathole ?

[FrankR]

[FormerACLUmember]

Lisa Jackson: a socialist wh*re waging von Clausewitz style Total War on American Free Enterprise.

[Hoodat]

These people are absolutely clueless when it comes to business. I challenge each and every one of them to go out and personally hire someone themselves. I would love to hear their responses. Just think how many people Obama could hire from the millions of dollars he has. So what’s stopping him?

[Pollster1]

American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Elect a Real American as President.

Once we get rid of the usurper in our White House, the economy will recover naturally as we invest in real jobs and in production that has value.

[richardtavor]

obama and his minions act like teenagers with holes in their pocket. They suggest that corporate assets should be looted because the socialists can’t access the 1.93 Trillion (yet.)

[tet68]

Cash reserves????

What is she talking about?

My former employer has gone through his life savings
just keeping the doors open.

[Eagle of Liberty]

“Even a portion of the $1.93 trillion invested in developing and installing new pollution control technology would result in good jobs right here for American workers,” Jackson said to the gathering of labor unions and environmental activists.

I love the ASSumption that businesses are supposedly not already investing in such things. Bottom line from this Administration is that they recognize that businesses find Obama's policies ANTI-BUSINESS, so they have decided to use the MSM to continue to blame the entire slow economic recovery on EVIL BUSINESSES.

[bigredkitty1]

Socialists, like the modern DemocRAT party, are so eager to waste other people’s money. Business leaders need to tell this b*tch and her Kenyan boss to go pound sand.

[Thermalseeker]

Are these people so clueless that they fail to realize businesses do not go into business to create jobs? People form businesses to make (GASP) a profit! If hiring more people helps the business owner and/or investors to make more profits then that is what will happen. Otherwise, businesses simply do not create jobs just because some greenie wannabe thinks they should.......

[SteveH]

Is not much of that cash owned by multinational corporations and sitting offshore for tax reasons?? If so, much of it can’t really be used for green jobs because it will be skimmed the moment it is transferred into the US to begin with.

[LibLieSlayer]

Just another carpet munching, communist obama administration, leftist hack thief.

LLS

[precisionshootist]

The only proper response to the EPA is for the new majority in congress to stop funding the EPA completely. I know that sounds radical but it’s the only way to fix this problem. Newt Gingrich is the only person of influence that has suggested this very solution.

[LibLieSlayer]

My business has cut deeply into my savings... after 36 years of success.

LLS

[jazusamo]

Well said. He and most Dems don’t spend their money, they spend tax dollars.

[jazusamo]

I would venture to say your employer is not alone.

These idiots always mention billion dollar companies, not small to medium size companies.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Translation: I see a pot of money that I want to take for me and my friends and it really doesn’t matter that someone else earned it and paid tax on it. I’ll bully them into spending it my way even if it means they don’t have reserves to survive through the Depression my boss created.