Last Saturday, I spoke at the American for Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington, D.C. I was one of three presenters on energy and energy/environmental issues.
Dan Simmons of the Institute for Energy Research documented the U.S.’s abundance of energy resources from two studies he helped put together: North American Energy Inventory and Hard Facts. Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute reviewed climate change issues and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s war on coal.
I took a different tact and would like to highlight some of the points I made in this post.
Time to Reprioritize?
As tragic as Obama’s policies have been to the fossil industry, and as wasteful as his fetish over “green jobs” has been to the taxpayer, emphasizing these points of disagreement with his administration overlooks a much more serious sleeping energy giant—electric industry policy.…
Continue Reading“[Romney] will allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.”
– Romney campaign spokesman, “Wind Energy Tax Credit Splits Obama, Romney,” Des Moines Register, July 30, 2012.
The extension of the 20-year old Production Tax Credit (PTC) for windpower and other qualifying renewable energy is a wedge issue in the national political campaign. And with growing state-level pushback against government subsidies for qualifying renewables, it is time to ‘put-up-or-shut-up’ for on-grid wind and solar technologies.
And it was VERY good news that the Romney campaign issued a statement two days ago officially opposing an extension of the wind PTC. The other side wants him to walk it back, but few tangibles epitomize the fluff and failure of government-knows-best than taxpayer investments in wind power and solar power
AWEA: In Panic Mode
Meanwhile, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has pumped millions of dollars into a lobbying campaign to secure the PTC’s extension.…
Continue Reading“We will take the vision for affordable energy, common sense regulation, and safe technology to the American people; then return to Washington D.C. to deliver the message — it’s time to free the American people from costly, unnecessary regulations and bureaucracy. It’s time for Washington to untie the hands of American energy producers and manufacturers, and free these job creators to put our country back to work again.”
Freedom rings! The anti-energy eco-planners used to monopolize the not-for-profit energy dialogue. There was yours truly running the Institute for Energy Research (IER) out of my house, and Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute carrying the free-market energy torch in Washington, D.C. And then that feisty bunch at the Competitive Enterprise Institute–Marlo Lewis and Chris Horner, et al.–came on the scene.
But now our side has caught up.…
Continue Reading