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Joe Bronstein's avatar

Hit it right on the head. There doesn’t seem to be any legitimate economic or environmental argument for, not just removing subsidies, but actively taxing renewable energy. It seems like this administration just associates renewable energy with liberals, and therefore it must be destroyed. Just a ridiculous way to govern.

I work for the EPA doing energy modeling, and all of our models (without this new tax) project fossil fuel use plummeting and renewables progressively taking a larger share of energy production by 2050. Why? Because it’s simply the least-cost way to meet future energy demand. From a purely economic standpoint, renewables are the cheapest way forward. They do not care about what scientists, economists, etc. think at all on this. Instead, we get emails from Lee Zeldin celebrating the return of “Beautiful, Clean Coal!”(Yes, that was an actual email), which is the dirtiest and probably most expensive fossil fuel energy source (at least certainly pricier than natural gas), and something we’re already rapidly phasing out in favor of natural gas and renewables.

Over and over again it feels like this administration just wants to go back in time. Bring back more factory work, bring coal back as a foundation of our energy production, promoting more conservative gender roles… I think they just really wish they could go back to the 50s and 60s.

Typed on my phone, excuse any typos.

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reed hundt's avatar

This is why green banks are important. They need public capital to join up project by project with private capital in order to expedite construction of cheap new power. They have the ability to decide how to have the biggest impact. For that reason, they are superior to a tax credit policy that delegates all decisions to the private sector.

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