The U.S. Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program has created 55,000 new cleantech jobs.

Judge as of 2014-01-14 against DOE or other authoritative figures available then (DOE Loan Programs Office reports, GAO or Inspector General audits) for jobs attributed to the Loan Guarantee Program. The claim reads as about 55,000 jobs. True: an official DOE figure from about that time puts jobs created or supported at about 55,000 (within ±10%) and describes them as created by the program. Mostly true: the figure is roughly right (within ±20%), or DOE's figure combines permanent and construction jobs, or 'created' and 'supported' jobs, in a way the claim glosses over. Mostly false: the 55,000 figure exists, but independent audits (e.g. GAO) show it to be mostly temporary construction jobs or projections rather than jobs actually created, or the verified number is much lower. False: no authoritative figure near 55,000 existed, or audited figures show far fewer jobs (less than half).

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Department of Energy - Loan Programs Projects Data.gov (DOE Loan Programs Office dataset) · 15 November 2014

   “The Loan Programs projects have created more than 55,000 jobs.”

2. E2 Why the U.S. Should Not Abandon Its Clean Energy Lending Programs | Brookings Brookings Institution · 28 September 2016

   “The program’s website refers to 63,000 jobs created with $38.6 billion of loans.”

3. E3 Why the U.S. Should Not Abandon Its Clean Energy Lending Programs | Brookings Brookings Institution · 28 September 2016

   “The DOE appears to have only counted “permanent” jobs as those working for the borrower, but its loan guarantees stimulated additional spending across the U.S. supply chain in the rapidly-growing clean energy sector.”

4. E4 Why the U.S. Should Not Abandon Its Clean Energy Lending Programs | Brookings Brookings Institution · 28 September 2016

   “Most of those jobs have been construction related—building both factories and generation facilities—at a time when those workers are disproportionately unemployed.”

E1, a DOE Loan Programs Office dataset on Data.gov dated November 2014, says the projects "have created more than 55,000 jobs". That is an official DOE figure from close to the time of the claim and matches the 55,000 it cites. However, a later Brookings commentary (E4) says most of these jobs were construction-related. E3 says DOE appears to have counted only permanent jobs at the borrower, while the guarantees also stimulated supply-chain spending, which suggests the DOE figure may understate the program's job effects. Brookings later described most of the program's jobs as construction-related [E4], so the figure may not reflect only lasting jobs, which fits the "mostly true" category in the criteria; no evidence item shows how DOE's 55,000 figure splits construction and permanent jobs. No GAO or Inspector General audit in the evidence shows the verified number to be much lower.