“The PTC was intended to be a temporary subsidy for a fledgling industry, but has morphed into a massive handout for large corporations, many of which are foreign owned—all at the expense of the American taxpayers. It’s a textbook case of corporate welfare…. It’s past time for the wind industry to sink or swim on its own merits.”
– Thomas Pyle (American Energy Alliance), “PTC Elimination Act Protects American Families,” April 22, 2015.
This week, Representatives Kenny Marchant and Mike Pompeo introduced H.R. 1901 to eliminate the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a subsidy for qualifying renewable energy (mainly wind power) that has been extended time and again since its enactment in 1992. The bill would tighten eligibility requirements for new wind projects, terminate the inflation adjustment provision saving taxpayers about 35 percent, and repeal the underlying statute to end all credits for existing projects by 2025.…
Continue Reading“What many environmentalists seem incapable of understanding is that resources are created. After all, crude oil is just sludge until you get it out of the ground and figure out how to use it as an energy source.”
“This Earth Day, we should all give two green thumbs up for human freedom and innovation.”
There is a certain fringe of the environmentalist movement whose members have almost nothing good to say about their fellow men and women. If not for humans, they sometimes explicitly argue, the Earth would be a wonderful place. The lion might not lie down with the lamb, but at least “nature” would be allowed to run its course unobstructed by humankind—which in their reckoning is somehow not a part of nature.
Admittedly, humans have a particular nature that sets them apart from the rest of the fauna on this planet.…
Continue Reading“The next time someone says that solar is a reliable form of energy ask them if, using only the panels, you will be able to light your house at night (other than with a kerosene lamp), heat your house during a blizzard, or cook dinner after dark. This is where the forced subsidy comes in.”
If an industry requires government coercion to sell its product, it is not a free-market industry. This is the case with third-party sales of roof-top solar-generated electricity where the building is otherwise on the utility grid.
In a recent Charlotte Observer article, Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, plugged his so-called “energy freedom” legislation allowing off-the-electric-grid third-party sales from solar farms directly to consumers, which is prohibited in North Carolina. “I believe in free markets, and I believe in property rights,” he said.…
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