Letter: Optimistic about green jobs

It's true that the green jobs industry is still in its baby stages, but there are plenty of reasons for optimism ["Official: Green jobs fall short," News, March 7.]

The residential energy efficiency program Green Jobs-Green NY, which insulates homes, is now becoming available to owners of homes and buildings. The program's financing mechanism, on-bill recovery, is the key to success. It allows homeowners to use energy efficiency savings to repay the cost of the work via a charge on their utility bill. They'll avoid upfront costs, high interest rates and extra bills in the mail. Financing energy efficiency work will be easier and less risky than ever.

All of this means more work for energy-efficiency businesses like ours, and more jobs for trained workers. In fact, the program is expected to create more than 10,000 jobs across the state in the next five years. This is not to say the county job-training programs cannot be improved, but we believe through effective and ongoing industry and government stakeholder communication, those employment rates can rise steadily.

The Town of Babylon's green homes program, which is much smaller than Green Jobs-Green NY, has already allowed our industry to hire and retain more than 100 workers in Suffolk County in the last two years.

Dan Kartzman, Copiague

Editor's note: The writer is the founder of Powersmith Home Energy Solutions and co-chair of Efficiency First New York, an advocacy organization.