President Obama’s re-election is having little
effect on efforts to roll back state laws mandating
the use of green energy. The Heartland Institute is
now teaming with the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC) to try and repeal those standards,
arguing that they are increasing the cost of
electricity.
What are their true motives? No doubt, the two favor
free markets. But they are also getting their
funding from sources long-opposed to the green
movement and those that are challenging the
authenticity of climate science. To that end, the
same special interests are bankrolling studies that
are used to lobby the 29 state legislatures that
have enacted so-called
Renewable Portfolio Standards.
The other relevant question is whether that
initiative contradicts the national mood, which
either explicitly or implicitly endorses green
energy’s role in a modern economy. That is,
President Obama was re-elected by a significant
margin, winning 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s
206, and a majority of the national vote. Should
these opposition groups engage or should they fight
on?
“ALEC is going to wake up and realize that the
Heartland Institute, which is funded by special
interests, is pushing them in a direction that’s
making them irrelevant to, or at best out of touch
with, the American public,” says Solar Energy
Industries Association President Rhone Resch, in a
Washington Post story. “And they can’t afford to
do that.”
The same Washington Post story points out that
ExxonMobil gave $736,000 to the Heartland Institute
from 1998 to 2006. The Koch Brothers, who have oil
and gas interests, also donated $25,000 in 2011.
Other interests are not disclosed but the
Heartland Institute had earlier been embroiled
in a controversy in which it was revealed that a
host of oil and coal businesses are its bankrollers.
State standards do require utilities to funnel
investments in new technologies that they may not
otherwise make. But the thinking behind such
requirements is that they reduce the barriers to
entry and help build economies of scale. In most
cases, the green energy mandates have been tweaked
but never repealed.
“Simply put, these policies force citizens,
businesses, and an industry within a state to
purchases renewable energy whether or not they value
or can afford it,” writes Todd Wynn, director of
ALEC’s energy and environment task force.
Democratic Process
To be sure, mandating green energy is a more
simplistic measure than actually complying with the
laws. Indeed, the
Edison Electric Institute has expressed concerns
that those requirements are getting out ahead of the
utility industry’s ability to deliver results.
Those power companies that now rely on coal will get
hurt the most. If utilities have to buy the more
expensive and less reliable green power, their
electric rates will rise, say critics. Higher prices
mean businesses are adding to overhead just as they
are coming up for air.
“The challenge has been to change how we deal with
renewables, to build it into our business so we make
it into a profitable business for our shareholders,”
says Eric Ackerman, director of alternative
regulation for the utility trade group, in a
previous EnergyBiz Insider story.
Consider California: Investor-owned utilities there
generate 20 percent of their electricity from
renewable energy, although most of that comes from
hydropower. Getting to its 33 percent mandate by
2020 won’t be easy. The hurdles include transmission
constraints, project finance and the difficulty of
securing power purchase agreements at reasonable
prices, says
IHS Emerging Energy Research.
California Governor Jerry Brown is committed to a
fair and successful outcome, emphasizing that
special interest groups will not be allowed to
subvert the process.
Lewis Milford, president of the
Clean Energy Group, adds that the public,
generally, understands and supports green energy
policies. He previously told EnergyBiz Insider that
green energy standards had once been the “province
of the public utility commissions, but now the
legislatures are fully involved in these decisions.
There’s been a democratization of renewables
policy.”
The renewed push by those think tanks averse to
portfolio standards is coming when policymakers at
all levels are trying to meet in the middle. And
while the Heartland Institute and ALEC believe in
their cause, they may end up undermining their
arguments and reducing their relevance at a time
when the Obama administration holds most of the
cards.
EnergyBiz Insider has been awarded the Gold for
Original Web Commentary presented by the American
Society of Business Press Editors. The column is
also the Winner of the 2011 Online Column category
awarded by Media Industry News, MIN. Ken Silverstein
has been honored as one of MIN’s Most Intriguing
People in Media.
Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein
energybizinsider@energycentral.com
Copyright © 1996-2012 by
CyberTech,
Inc.
All rights reserved.
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.energycentral.com
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.energybiz.com