Blistering Attacks on Solar Energy Gaining Traction
Money talks and the Koch Brothers are the most loquacious of the anti-solar movement. They have crafted a well-orchestrated movement under the aegis of the innocuous sounding name of Americans for Prosperity to derail the solar and renewable energy movement in states throughout the country. We don’t know if the Koch brothers are behind every legislative initiative to scale back solar energy, but certainly their robust wallet bankrolls the most vocal of these efforts to limit solar energy’s encroachment on fossil fuels.
The good news is that solar energy is now becoming a staple in the energy basket in the United States. But solar energy’s success now breeds these attacks from the fossil fuel industry and well-moneyed conservatives.
The attacks are beginning to pay off for the Koch Brothers working with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. We reported in the SolarTown News about the new charges on solar panel users in Oklahoma. Oklahoma became one of the first states to pass a bill charging residential and other solar power users with grid-tied solar and wind power installations a monthly fee.
Now just this week, Ohio became the “first in the nation to actually halt its renewable energy standard (RES),” as reported by ThinkProgess.com. The legislation still needs the governor’s signature, but it is expected that the governor will sign some version of the bill.
There has been a sea change not in public opinion, but in the glut of money seeking to undermine solar energy in the Buckeye State since the original RES was adopted six years. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, David Firestone describes the victory for the anti-renewable movement: “The big-money coalition attacking solar and wind power scored a huge trophy this week.”
The problem started when the Obama Administration in its first two years in office with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress was unable to pass a comprehensive energy bill. President Obama had made energy one of his three major pillars in his new Administration, but yet, the energy bill, even scaled-back after all of the horse-trading in Congress, died an unceremonious death. Chalk a major victory for the anti-solar movement and the fossil fuel industry.
This void is national policy left the states to craft their own energy policy and over forty states enacted renewable energy standards. But without a national policy, each of these states is a potential battleground vulnerable to attacks bankrolled by the Koch Brothers. We are now seeing the effect of no national policy on energy, and we can expect that with the recent successes in Oklahoma and Ohio, that these attacks will be expanded to other states.