Real men wear pink. Real women wear fur. And real market-based policy doesn’t include special interest subsidies. Sadly, lots of legislation fails the real free market test. So it is with one of Washington’s favorite energy sources du jour: energy production tax credits (PTC). Sadly, anti-market policies like the expansion …
After budget-stricken Spain eliminated subsidies for new renewable energy this year, Germany is now following the example by making significant cuts to its solar subsidy program. Bloomberg reports: Incentives for solar units pushed capacity past government targets, prompting Merkel to cut subsidies even as she seeks to wean Germany off …
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is the ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with environmental issues. He is currently working to end subsidies for wind power, an energy source that he dubs “a scam.” “We don’t have the money” to continue the subsidies, Alexander told Heritage in our latest segment …
Environmental activists and liberal politicians are fond of bemoaning the supposedly disproportionate tax benefits that go to the fossil fuel industry compared to its renewable energy competitors. The president specifically has made “ending tax breaks for oil companies” a pillar of his paltry efforts to reduce the federal deficit. But …
According to Germany’s environment minister, Norbert Roettgen, “Solar is a success story made in Germany.” “Success” appears to mean having the world’s largest amount of ridiculously overpriced electricity. (The German subsidy for solar energy is up to five times the actual wholesale cost in the U.S.) But even Roettgen realizes …
Want a clear indication of President Barack Obama’s priorities? Take a look at the spending decisions emerging from his Administration today. In the battle between $40,000 dollar-electric-car-buying yuppies and at-risk kids in the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, rich people won, and they have President Obama to thank for it. The …
Today, Senators Jim DeMint (R–SC) and Mike Lee (R–UT) introduced legislation that would move the United States a giant step forward in making our country’s energy market freer by eliminating targeted tax credits for energy sources and technologies. Their legislation, a companion to Representative Mike Pompeo’s (R–KS) bill, would force …
This past April, when Members of Congress introduced the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions (NATGAS) Act that provides preferential tax treatment to subsidize the production, use, and purchase of natural-gas vehicles, the propane industry asked, “What about us?” Well, someone was listening, because a little over a month …
If clean-energy means “low-carbon” (a definition to which I object), then the U.S. is way, way ahead of China in the clean-energy race. If it means low-everything-else, we are still way, way ahead, since China has a pathetic record on controlling genuine pollution. Getting hung up on commoditized solar-panel or …
