Global warming will/has brought about more severe events: hurricanes tornados, wild fires, costing billions of dollars and lives. So the republican response is to curtail renewable energy projects and as a result rely more on coal and oil and natural gas which is a significant contributor to global warming. What is wrong with these people ?
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What in tunket is wrong with developing and delivering clean renewable energy? A terrific jobs program, and developing better storage and local sources and delivery would be a huge boon. Sad that the less "developed" world is ahead of us on this.
It takes real perversity to defy the market and advantage poison over non-poison.
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Well, if renewable energy is cost-effective and worth having, people will buy it. Allow self interest to dictate, not government.
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Try letting the industries compete equally. It will be interesting to see what life would be like without the perks that the fossil fuel industries get.
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The equity markets are pricing the future value of legacy fossil fuel companies at a discount, due to the poor return prospects years down the road. This week the rating agency Moody's put cities on notice to address climate change risks (surging seas or intense storms) or face downgrades. All the smart money is on renewables growing and overtaking fossil fuels, perhaps not in a 70yr old congressman's career but they know it to be true, and they will admit it the day they retire or their conscious gets the better of them and they resign. Self interest/not the countries well being tucked their morals and decision making to a dark place as Buffett says it feels safe to follow the croud. Millennial's are you listening/voting?
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Ok - no double standards: Then let's stop subsidizing oil, gas + coal + let them "stand on their own" Mr. Pruitt
If you would stick your head outside the 'I am the USA' box, you'd see that you have just turned over a big 21st century market to China an Europe. (ethics of course compound the error)
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Time to call our Senators and Representatives to oppose the House version and support the Senate version that preserves renewable tax credits for wind and solar. We obviously need to preserve text credits for electric vehicles too.
The oil industry has received tax credits far too long and we are clearly experiencing diminishing returns from our dependency on the fossil fuel industry. Our survival and viability as a nation and planet depend on the renewable energy industry. Anyone with a little common sense knows that.
It is unconscionable that at this time when we are seeing the worst, most destructive hurricanes and wildfires in our nations’ history that Republicans would take a step backwards and discourage renewable energies. With all their “fiscal responsibility” Republicans shy away from including the costs of these devastating natural disasters.
We clearly need to accelerate, not inhibit safer and more viable forms of energy for our long-term survival. With the right policies, even places like West Virginia can become “renewed” as a renewable energy leader for the future.
We can make a difference. Please make the call. I just did!
Congressional Switchboard:
1 (202) 224-3121
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These provisions (via changes to the Production Tax Credit and the Base Erosion (BEAT) proposal) would end the tax credits that have powered the growth of the industry in recent years.
Here is a simple link NYT readers can use to contact your elected officials about this issue:
http://p2a.co/1nDPGnu
Maintaining the current tax regime is key to future procurement of renewable energy projects across the country.
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Let renewable energy stand to compete on its own!
Oh but let's add an amendment to lower taxes on only fossil fuel profits!
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"Fossil fuel producers are under little pressure in either bill"
Doesn't exactly match up with standard Dem mythology about oil subsidies does it? Or nukes.
"a big blow to the electric vehicle market, which is just picking up steam,”??
which has been less than flat for more than a year owing to lower gasoline prices and lack of charging infrastructure.
D- Nice try. This article seems to miss all the salient economic points.
“I would do away with these incentives that we give to wind and solar,” Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in October. “I’d let them stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas.”
Okay, then remove the subsidies $10-$57 billion a year fossil fuels receive in subsidies and charge them for polluting our air. No? Yeah that's what I thought. This isn't about leveling the playing field, it is about propping up old polluting industries instead allowing new players in the market that produce much cleaner energy to erode the old guard's market share. Is air, land, and river pollution a Chinese hoax too?
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The fossil fuel industry should be taxed to compensate for the environmental damage they do through spills and and other pollution from smokestacks and tail pipes.
Also, those companies have known about global warming for decades, but done essentially nothing to mitigate their major role. They should be heavily taxed for past, present and future damage to our environment and our economy every year.
Lastly, higher fossil fuel taxes should offset the significant part of our defense spending that serves only to protect our oil interests around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
Comparable taxes on renewables would be trivial, and then there'd be no need for subsidies for those industries.
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With all of the breaks, loopholes and subsidies showered on fossil fuels, it is remarkable that only renewables would be singled out to lose federal support. Let's get rid of all energy subsidies or none off them. Renewables promise the most jobs and the least contribution to greenhouse gasses. What possible rationale is there for putting them at a disadvantage in relation to fossil fuels?
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Not mentioned are jobs, with the renewables industry being a major source throughout the nation and one that the fossil fuel industry cannot replicate. Even with incentives, they will be producing a product that a diminishing market segment has any interest in. Then, there is the idiocy of the US operating in isolation in a global market. Trump and his gang of kleptocrats seem bent on taking what they can at the expense of ceding the energy production and automotive market to our "frenemies" in Asia and Europe.
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LOL, we had 8 years of Obama and the promise of all the clean energy jobs. Where are they? Sorry folks renewable energy sources receive over twice the $ that fossil fuels receive and only produce 3% of our energy needs while fossil fuels account for 66%.
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This is just another regressive measure by republicans to push our nation back into the era of coal and environmental plundering. These tax credits are responsible for just about every renewable energy project in America, and just a whiff of uncertainty will cripple a growing and vital industry. How about all of the former fossil energy workers who have retrained to become wind turbine technicians.
This article quoted someone who said the 'production tax credit has destroyed the energy market, especially in the Midwest. has this person ever been to the Midwest? There are wind farms being built from Wisconsin to Texas throughout the wind corridor. It's big business. Perhaps the energy market being referred to are the lower rates utilities can charge due to the proliferation of alternative energy production. The grid cannot support the amount of new generation that could be planned without transmission line upgrades.
This is another sad consequence of republicans going unchecked by responsible citizens of the entire United States.
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I hope that people by now realize what a cancer this Administration is. Everything that has been put into place to protect people and the environment has been overturned by Trump and Company. Many people are waiting it out until he is no longer in office, but I fear the damage that has been done will be permanent. China has already taken advantage of this. They will be the number one supplier of renewable energy. These could be jobs in America. The Republicans talk about creating jobs via trickle down voodoo tax cuts. Jobs jobs jobs! So why are they doing the opposite by taking away incentives?
Are they the party of opposition to everything that is logical, or are they driven still by the wealthy and corporations steeped in last century thinking instead of looking forward? Do they not stop and wonder what kind of environment and world they are leaving to their children?
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That's their goal. NPR was interviewing an energy economist who said Trump's push to dump coal on the international market will simply make us poor and dirty again. Few countries are pursuing coal fired energy, so Trump's move is a little like someone bragging they have an exclusive contract with Saudi Arabia to sell booze. Won't happen.
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Republicans want all the loot they can get on behalf of their fossil fuel donors. They're ignoring scientifically accepted global warming and the latest exhibits in the form of unprecedented wildfires in the western United States and the unprecedented ferocity of hurricanes coming from a warming and rising Caribbean.
They're also counting on the usual short attention span of midterm voters and their baked in electoral advantages due to gerrymandering, voter suppression tactics, dark money, and their down low alliance with Putin. They also expect voters to forget their ongoing wars on healthcare and women, their support for sexual predators and child molesters, and their unprecedented tax giveaway to the undeserving rich.
Or maybe they expect to lose bigly in 2018 but also expect divided government and a federal court system packed with right wing ideologues to preserve their policies. After all, they do have the best government money can buy.
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Oh boy, now wild fires are due to "global warming"? Please.
This whole Russian thing is proving to be nothing but a Democrat ruse.
War on women? Bill Clinton gets a chuckle on that one.
Voter suppression? Sorry showing an ID to show the person is indeed who they say they are is not suppression.
Please, keep up with your line of thinking. Those stale arguments keep getting Republicans elected.
Irwin, there you go again. I'll assume you're just misinformed. Read and listen for better perspective. And Fox, Rush, and Alex Jones spew propaganda, not credible news.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/climate/california-fires-warming.html
The 'Democratic' Russia ruse is led by Bob Mueller, a lifelong Republican. Comey, who started the investigation, is also a Republican. The results? Self admitted collusion, two guilty pleas, two other indictments, and counting. It's been widely reported.
Equating Clinton with Republicans on women issues is laughable. After his impeachment proceedings, Clinton's approval was its highest at 73%. He finished office with a Gallup approval of 65%, higher than every departing president since Harry Truman. Women supported his policies, not the behavior contested in congress.
Voter suppression is in Republican DNA. It works, which is why they do it. So called in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent. It's too bad Republicans are afraid to compete in fair elections.
'Stale' arguments seem to have riled the Democratic base and independents as recently seen in Virginia. Women in particular are very unhappy with Republicans. And, although I'm sad the opposition remains misinformed, I'm happy if they're overconfident.
How much are the subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel energy companies? I would like to see a chart comparing the tax subsidies per kwt. hour for each form of energy generation.
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You might try here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#/media/File:Cost_of_Energ...
When the foundation of your business model sits on government subsidies, you can't afford to ignore the effects of shifting sands.
It is my understanding that the Federal government currently gives large subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Some of these subsidies may be somewhat hidden from view, special tax treatment & stuff like that. But they are, in fact, subsidies
From a policy perspective one asks "why in the name of God would we subsidize fossil fuels?!?"
From a political perspective the answer is: campaign contributions.
Throw the bums out!
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When has American been at its best? When it is looking forward to the future.
When it built industries.
When it built rail roads across the continent.
When it built infrastructure such renewable power as part of the New Deal.
When it built highways across the country.
When it decided to go to the moon.
When it exhibited a "can do" spirit and attitude.
None of these achievements came without cost, but all were forward looking to a better, brighter world. Focusing on petroleum and coal does not. The future is not the tar pits but clean energy, yet the Republicans want the people to continue to shell out their hard earned money to the oil and coal companies to sustain them with ever increasing prices taxing our families and economy.
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Is the reason GOP representatives from corn producing states demand continued government support for ethanol in our gasoline because it is renewable and makes us less dependent on oil?
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What will we do when the wells run dry? Oh, I know, we’ll all be dead. So who cares. Just drill baby drill and kick the can down the road.
I wonder if John D. Rockefeller got any tax breaks at the beginning of the Standard Oil Trust? How about Henry Ford, especially when he wanted to pay his employees enough to buy what they made? Did Alexander Graham Bell get any preferential treatment? What about Edison and Westinghouse - how many tax breaks did they get?
I wonder how many tax breaks will continue to flow to building the future, while we perpetuate the past in the name of MAGA?
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The issue is not running out of oil, but the absolute requirement to leave it and coal and gas in the ground, unburned, to avoid the dire effects of global warming of *over* 2° C by increasing CO2 levels.
We are getting there with the rise of renewable energy and plug-in electric vehicles, but every year's delay matters, a lot. Already most climate models predict that to only have 2°C warming we'll have to somehow remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, at a cost many multiples higher than the renewable tax credits.
Fossil fuel producers and burners don't have to pay for *ANY* of the effects of their activity.
Those wind farms and solar fields are in the "middle of nowhere", and they provide jobs for people who otherwise would have no or limited employment.
Our energy supplier here in N California is PG&E, and it's closer to 1/3 of it's total power delivered from renewable, non fossil, energy sources.
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Yeah but they want to close Diablo Canyon, which will undo renewable progress.
Yes, that makes sense. Save a handful of jobs at the expense of the future.
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"I would do away with incentives that we give to wind and solar" Scott Pruitt. I'm shocked that he would say this, said no one, ever. Couple this hideous tax plan with the DoE's rule-making attempting to force Coal and Nuclear supply back into the energy stack and what we have are higher electric bills.
The interesting thing is US industry will become less competitive if energy costs rise. Further, corporations know this and if one looks at the industrial level of energy consumption you will see a shift away from traditional utilities for their supply. Many corporations like Google, Apple, Walmart and others are streaking towards self-supply. They are investing heavily in renewables, storage and other technologies.
As hard as republicans want to push us back to 1934 (pre-New Deal), industry will not follow. Instead they will lead.
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Cartoon president & shamless repubs are not so funny when steal our future. Coal & oil poison us & our planet and renewables are the brass ring to grasp for our present/future. The backwardness and harm done by fox news and greedy oligarchs (Koch bro., Mercer, Mellon, Adelson, etc.) is becoming a dull ache on our society.
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The republican party is marching us back into the dirty dark ages. Machiavellian We need to be looking forward
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Once again, the best politicians money can buy. The Kochs must be very happy.
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I wonder what Republicans have against the planet they live on.
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And the fossil fuel industry speaks.
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Class. Today you assignment is to compare and contrast two actions by the Republican party:
1. Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, statement that: “I’d let them [renewable energy companies] stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas.” and,
2. "a last-minute amendment added by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, would allow oil and gas companies to receive lower tax rates on their profits."
No cheating by looking at Sarah Huckabee's answer.
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Make China GREAT again!
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Of course. Almost every bad thing imaginable is packed into this disaster of an abomination. And who knows what those scribbles on the margin say?
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Glad I don't have any kids to leave this mess to. Big oil, time to invest in new technology for future generations. Quit living in denial, it's already too late!
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That's a lot of wind jobs lost in Red states in an election year.
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if wind and solar still need production subsidies to be viable, the claims that wind or solar are cheaper than fossil fuel energy can't be true. Something is not being reported here.
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Of course they do. These are very new technologies that are competing against industries with the upper hand of ascendancy — both in a societal norms sense and a monetary sense. Fossil fuel industry in the United States receives about $18.5 billion dollars a year in subsidies (or corporate welfare, as I prefer to call it), despite countless studies indicating that this money does nothing to provide jobs for middle class Americans. And that doesn’t even account for the trillions of dollars in externalities which the fossil fuel industry has no accountability for: their continuous degradation of our national and global environment at expense to everyone but themselves. If we taxed carbon in this country it would be much more realistic for renewables to compete. Instead, we are providing tax breaks to renewables, which do indeed create growth in a burgeoning area of innovation and employment expansion. I’m willing to provide a helping hand to an industry which is already playing an essential role in building our collective future. For the fossil fuel industry, wealthy executives, and their bought out politicians? Not so much.
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ALL forms of energy are subsidized; when the wind PTC phases out in 2020 (if not before), it will be the only form of energy generation in the US that is NOT subsidized.
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Did you read the article? It is all about subsidizing oil and gas production!
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Following the link provided here, I see that solar energy, with all its subsidies, and all its "growth" is providing less that 1% of our energy needs. Is the cost of solar panels really a driver? If solar panels were free how much would solar provide? 3%? 5%?. Yes it's clean, but overreliance and overemphasis on this inadequate source ultimately leads to a failure that makes us revert back to easily available fossil fuels. We need to realistically plan for where the bulk of our energy comes from.
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The EIA link says twice that--2%--which is a massive increase from ten years ago. It also says that other alternative fuels and wind provide far more, and that the numbers on renewables are on a tear upwards.
Just once, could you guys try to base your claims on reality? Just once, could you try getting the numbers straight?
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from the wibsite:
Renewables (total) = 14.9%
Hydropower = 6.5%
Wind = 5.6%
Biomass = 1.5%
Solar = 0.9%
Geothermal = 0.4%
But in any case: To talk about "growth" is one thing. What you don't see is an answer to WHAT PERCENTAGE of our needs will renewables deliver, say in 10, 20, 50 years? Where will the bulk of our energy come from?
Oh my god, Ken. You don't know how glad I am to hear you speaking some economic sense on this issue. Throwing taxpayer money at wind and solar is essentially throwing money in a flaming dumpster. Wind and solar are a fraud, cooked up by anti-human environmentalists, and supported by fossil fuel companies who know those sources won't displace them. We need bulk electricity, and if we don't want to burn fossil fuels, the only option is hydro where available and full-bore nuclear power. Wind and solar are a joke and are getting in the way of true decarbonization.
Question: as I understand it, the bills treat capital expenditures as expenses that get written off in the year that they are made, rather than being depreciated over several years. Since solar farms and wind turbines are capital equipment, doesn't this offset some of the lost tax credits?
It is because wind and solar are neither profitable, nor appreciate in value, as they need to be replaced often. It is a scam. We are all being played. Nuclear and hydro are what we need.
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Make the 1880's Great Again: GOP 2017
Nice GOPeople.
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I've been buying renewable energy (wind) in Texas for 12 years. It's an outstanding industry in a state not necessarily known for renewable anything. But the truth is that Texas is one of the nation's leaders in renewable energy, which brings me to my point: The GOP is walking cognitive dissonance. How can they sleep at night? Has reasoning and respect for business and life gone extinct in this party?
I have no issue with giving my vote GOP initiatives, but, as of lately, I'm sorry, I can't be part of it. The party is just too out of touch with logic and decency.
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why am I not surprised
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Sabotaging the renewable-clean energy industries out of spite.
This what the Republican party has become, a confederation of vandals.
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Curtailing renewable energy is the point of politicians in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
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So the powers that be want to continue making our electricity with coal (or worse nuclear or just slightly better natural gas.) To hell with climate change and its appropriate remedy solar and wind.
All the while Americans want to do the right thing for our descendants and planet earth. A handful of ultra-wealthy investors have been able to over-rule the vast majority again. This must not stand.
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I wish this was the case but there is a large portion of the American electorate who just don't believe in science.
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Actually, you might be glad to know that Betty is right. 69% of the American electorate believes that global warming is happening, as of 2016. The number that believe it is anthropogenic is lower, at 52%, but that’s still a majority. Recognizing that climate change denial is a fringe position, accepted by neither scientists nor the general public, is an important step forward in climate change communication for this country.
Here’s a link from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) if you’d like more information, or to see how your county stacks up: http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2016/?e...
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Being against nuclear means the following two things:
You are are not serious about climate change.
You don't know anything about nuclear power.
Why don't we focus on bringing back coal and let Germany, China and India focus on renewable energy. That should work out well for us.
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Let's bring back typewriters and wall phones crt-televisions while we're at it too! We could dominate the communications markets and rule the world!!!!!
3
or we could subsidize every other unprofitable industry and feel good about how kind we are.
Too bad Germany is failing miserably. China and India are doing a lot of nuclear too, while Germany is turning off nuclear reactors.
Way to go, America. Green energy across the world will cruise ahead, developing new technologies and making advances, leaving you with museum-style industries. And guess what, China and India have discovered they need to enable people to breathe as part of lifting their populations out of poverty. Their new middle class members may not opt for Made in America stuff once they go shopping....
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You know, these folks in Washington just don't get that the genie is out of the bottle
on renewable energy. Even if they help fossil over renewable people will continue to put up rooftop
solar and use less and less fuel (move to EV vehicles, for example). If they make
electricity more expensive by reverting to coal at the expense of renewable technologies
it will just compel more people to use more renewable sources on their own. The G.O.P.
is out of touch with what most Americans want and will buy and do, so, long-term they
are looking at losses in the House and Senate and State Houses/Senates. They've cooked their
own goose, as the saying goes.
Keep putting up those solar panels on or off the grid!
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