Energy

In Nevada, one of many states where taxpayers have been subsidizing solar projects for years, the Public Utility Commission of Nevada (PUC) voted unanimously on December 23, 2015, to increase net metering rates over the next four years.  Two days before the vote, SolarCity declared that it would cease operations in the state if the subsidies were repealed.  However, the PUC’s decision did not mean the fight was completely over for Solar City and other providers.

As tax rebates and incentive payments to businesses continue to deplete revenue intended for Oklahoma’s General Revenue Fund (GRF), which has fallen more than 13 percent below estimates, legislators must come up with a remedy. Otherwise, the $1.3 billion budget shortfall will continue to grow.

When it comes to global warming, President Obama has often said “the science is settled.”  If that is so then it does not make sense that 300 scientists, engineers, economists, and others sent a letter on January 25, 2016, supporting the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology for their efforts to “ensure that federal agencies complied with federal guidelines that implemented the Data Quality Act” in their examination of a hotly debated National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study.  They wrote that the law, also called the Information Quality Act (IQA), “required government-wide guidelines to ‘ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, including statistical information,’ that was disseminated to the public.  Individual agencies, such as the EPA, NOAA and many others were required to issue corresponding guidelines and set up mechanisms to allow affected parties to seek to correct information considered erroneous.”  The signatories believe that NOAA, an agency within the Department of Commerce, has failed to follow the IQA and that this “is an issue of international relevance because of the weight given to U.S. Government assessments during international negotiations” such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body created by the United Nations.

On December 1, 2015, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) published a report, “The Sun Should Set on Solar Socialism.”  The report reviewed the history of federal energy subsidies, particularly the dramatic increase in funding following the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  Between 2004 and 2015, tax expenditures for alternative electricity generation cost $13.7 billion, according to the Internal Revenue Service; meanwhile, the University of California at Berkeley Energy Institute at Haas Business School stated that total tax expenditures for the four largest clean energy tax credits had cost more than $18 billion since 2006.

During a January 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, then-Senator Barack Obama remarked that under his ideal energy plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”  He further noted that by capping greenhouse gasses, producers of energies like coal would need to make vast changes and, “that will cost money.  They will pass that money onto consumers.”