California's clean-tech training good for green

California’s pumping some fresh, young green blood into the emerging Green Collar Economy. Over the next two decades, the $20 million good-for-green biofuel injection will take shape as the California Green Corps, a free “clean-tech” training program for 1,000 at-risk 16- to 24-year-olds.

Following in the footsteps of his Job and Peace Corps founder father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed the initiative this week. “This is exactly the kind of program that President Obama envisioned when he put together his economic stimulus package, which is to create jobs, jobs and jobs,” Schwarzenegger said.

What will those green “jobs, jobs, jobs” be?

• Solar panel installation specialists to support the state’s Million Solar Roof Initiative
• Skilled sheet metal workers to create wind turbines
• Green construction workers to build energy-efficient co-generation units, among dozens of other green collar positions

The 20-month pilot program invests $10 million in startup capital from public-private partnerships with environmental nonprofits like Van Jones’s Green For All, on top of $10 million in federal matching funds from the recently-approved stimulus package. Ten regional Green Corps locations—one for each of California’s major financial sectors—will open during the program's initial phase. That’s good news for a state economy weakened by record-high foreclosures, a $16 billion budget deficit and a miserable (10%) unemployment rate.

Meanwhile, a nasty debate is broiling over Schwarzenegger’s political motives for endorsing the Green Corps. Did the man behind the biodiesel Hummer endorse the program for a press-friendly ride on President Obama’s green coattails? Or is the Green Corps a convenient distraction from the Golden State’s divisive budget crisis? And why isn’t more Green Corps credit being given to Jones, the green collar industry pioneer who, incidentally, took his place as Obama’s Green Czar earlier this week?

My question: Who cares? Whatever you think about the governor, what's not to celebrate about more jobs, the greener the better?