Dr. Anthony Joseph
NYS DOL
Tony is Deputy Director of the Bureau of Workforce Innovation with the NYS Department of Labor, where he oversees workforce policy, innovation and improvement – and a portfolio that includes the State’s 33 Local Workforce Investment Areas and One-Stop Career system, and the Department’s Business Services office and New York State Registered Apprenticeship. Prior to joining the Department in 1996, Tony was responsible for economic, financial and environmental analyses of energy policy, energy regulations and energy investments. As such, he has been designated the Department’s lead person on “green” workforce related matters, and serves as the Department’s representative on clean energy initiatives.Tony holds a Ph.D. degree in environmental and applied economics from the University of Georgia, with concentration in public policy, econometrics and operations research. He also has degrees in business administration and accounting, and his professional work experience spans the private business sector, the federal government and academia.
Clean Energy Policy Challenges – Balancing Mutually Exclusive Objectives
Clean energy is a critical sector to the national Good Jobs-Green Jobs movement. This is because public investment in clean energy offers significant opportunity to advance three objectives.1. Stimulate Job Creation and Job Retention – provide capital investment in manufacture, installation, production and maintenance across the clean energy industry supply chain.2. Support Workforce Development – provide workers with the requisite knowledge, skills and abilities to allow business productivity to be competitive in a global economy, and to achieve quality and efficiency expectations.3. Create Pathways Out of Poverty – provide living wage employment to individuals in economically and environmentally disadvantaged communities through targeted hiring.However, the economic, environmental and social challenge is that the three objectives tend to be mutually exclusive in the market place, and are not unilaterally endorsed by members of the market place. Therefore, public investment in clean energy must rely upon public policy for the three objectives to be simultaneously achieved through market place behavior.These remarks will address the policy factors that must be considered in achieving these mutually exclusive objectives.