Improved energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances; more research and development into biomass, clean coal and other technologies; and opening more U.S. acreage to oil exploration would all help create jobs, Dow's Liveris said.

At a separate conference in Pittsburgh, experts said U.S. workers are already finding jobs building wind turbines, installing solar panels and retrofitting buildings with stronger insulation to conserve energy.

Kathleen McGinty, secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said companies like Spain's Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica -- which makes windmill turbine blades -- have created jobs in a state once dominated by the steel and coal industries.

"We are a hard-hat, blue-collar, steel-tipped boots kind of place, and maybe we have something to offer," McGinty said.

But U.S. executives said their companies should be the ones building the nation's "green economy" and creating such jobs, with help from the federal government.

General Electric Co CEO Jeffrey Immelt said at the Wall Street Journal conference on Wednesday that tax credits due to expire this year were critical to supporting the U.S. renewable energy industry.

GE would sell its wind turbines and other green products in Turkey, Mexico and other nations if they were not purchased here, he added.

Defending the renewable subsidies, Immelt argued that industries including commercial aviation and housing have long received similar incentives.

"For some reason we decide that energy is the one industry in the world where the only policy should be the price of a barrel of oil," Immelt said. "I don't know why an anti-technology, stick-your-head-in-the-sand approach is applauded by anybody."