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 nuclear power and expand alternative-energy sources for Europe’s largest economy. The government argues that subsidies have driven up electricity prices for German consumers while propping up solar-panel prices for domestic manufacturers. Germany is, by far, not the ideal place for … More
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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 of In the Green Room. “It’s a puny amount of electricity,” he added, “and it’s destroying the environment in the name of saving the environment.” Alexander agreed that subsidies for other energy sectors should also be eliminated, but he stressed … More
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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 a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) handily debunks the myth that oil companies uniquely or excessively benefit from the tax code. One devastating chart sums up CBO’s key findings: As the chart shows, renewable energy is far … More
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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 that affordability matters: “The cost factor has to be at acceptable levels.” So Germany is cutting subsidies to solar power. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that shares for solar-panel makers worldwide tumbled when Germany announced the new … More
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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 Winners: Today, President Obama put the taxpayers’ money where his allegiances lie. The Daily Caller reports that the White House intends to increase taxpayer-funded subsidies for those who purchase new-technology vehicles, including the Chevy Volt, to $10,000 per buyer, up … More
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When is a solar energy company a loan flipper instead of a solar energy company? How about when the value of its loan subsidies vastly exceeds the value of its solar project? A case in point is First Solar’s sale of its Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 (AVSR1) to Exelon. On February 9, First Solar, Inc., made an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing warned that First Solar’s sale of the AVSR1 to Exelon may fall through because of difficulty in getting building permits. The filing … More
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Today, Senators Jim DeMint (R–SC) and Mike Lee (R–ID) 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 any tax policy that picks certain industries as winners and losers in the market to expire at the end of the year and expedite sunsets for tax credits extending multiple years. And it goes after all targeted tax credits: oil, … More
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By Tad DeHaven
The Indianapolis Star recently profiled local boy makes good (handing out other people’s money) John Fernandez, the ex-Bloomington mayor and Obama fundraiser who now heads up the Economic Development Administration. A reference to an EDA taxpayer handout to a technology park in southern Indiana caught my eye: Southwestern Indiana got a $6.7 million boost from [...]
Obama and Daniels Team Up to ‘Shovel’ Subsidies is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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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 later Representatives John Carter (R–TX) and Dan Boren (D–OK) introduced the Propane Gas Act of 2011, which would provide a five-year extension for targeted tax credits for propane as a motor fuel, propane-powered vehicles, and propane autogas—propane converted to fuel … More
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