Saturday, June 28, 2014

Rollbacks . . . Renewable Energy Edition

As I was traveling to work today on the subway, I audibly groaned as the NPR podcast I was listening to informed me of Ohio's decision to put on hold its regulations requiring that utility providers get at least 12.5% of their energy from renewable sources. The guise for this temporary hold? To give customers relief on their utility bills because renewable energy costs more. The republican lawmaker that sponsored this bill in the Ohio State Senate said the regulations were unnecessarily driving up costs for utility providers which then got passed onto the consumer. Other republican lawmakers claim that now that there is a shale gas energy boom spreading across the nation there is a no longer a need for investment in renewable energy. The juicy, but unnerving truth is that the bill's sponsor, Senator Bill Seitz, and other lawmakers are closely tied to the utility and fossil fuel industries. In fact, Senator Seitz's cover was blown when Ohio's major utility providers came out both in favor of his more draconian bill which would have completely eliminated the standards as well as the weaker bill which passed, putting the standards on hold for two years. Beyond the roll back in the renewable energy standards, Ohio also promptly abandoned $2.5 billion worth of wind turbine investments.

The NPR podcast enlightened me on the darker side of this deal. As usual, if you follow the money trail long enough, you get to the stinky source. It turns out that the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) - the same organization that pushed states to pass Stand your Ground laws, like the one that George Zimmerman used to defend himself in Trayvon Martin's slaying - has decided it now wants to push for all states to abandon their renewable energy standards. ALEC has even teamed up with the Heartland Institute to convince states across the country to get rid of their energy mandates. They claim that they are only thinking of the consumer, dismissing the fact that both of these groups receive sizable donations from the fossil fuel industry. If they are only thinking of consumers, why do they not also push to get rid of the government subsidies that are given to the fossil fuel companies? Or why do they not advocate for lawmakers to pass regulations that ensure utility companies accept the costs incurred by renewable energy investment - like they are supposed to - instead of passing off those costs to their consumers? I thought these conservative "institutes" were all for investment and free-markets. The standards that Ohio had and most other states still have, encourage investment as well as free-market growth. It is apparent that these groups are only in favor of their principles when it directly relates to their rate of return on shares their members have invested in.

As usual, it is up to us to fight back. We cannot allow groups that receive large donations from the fossil fuel industry and climate denialists to dictate policy on renewable energy. Groups like ALEC and the Heartland Institute are most effective when they are able to lay below our radar, using donations from interested persons and corporations to get their work done. We cannot allow that to continue. Just as the spotlight was put on corporations that contributed to ALEC when Trayvon Martin was killed, we must put the spotlight on these groups that only have the best interest of their wallets and the fossil fuel industry at heart. We must be the eye that always watches and the voice that always speaks up.

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