Congress has taken action that actually advances free markets and limits government intrusion. I was in the room when, on September 17, the House Energy and Commerce Committee—with bipartisan support—advanced legislation to lift the 1970s-era ban on crude-oil exports. HR 702, “To adapt to changing crude oil market conditions,” is expected to receive a full floor vote within a matter of weeks.
The export ban is a relic of a bygone era during which ideas like “peak oil” and “energy scarcity” were the conventional wisdom. Despite all those who cried “wolf,” the U.S. is now the world’s largest combined oil-and-gas producer.
Ending this obsolete ban would unleash America’s energy producers on the global market, increasing domestic production and creating jobs. Additionally, reports from experts at the non-partisan Energy Information Administration and Government Accountability Office, plus consultants at IHS, indicate that it will also lower prices at the pump.
Like everything that seems to happen in Washington, DC, these days, this initial victory may have a price tag that prevents its final passage.
Getting the Democrats on board with removing the barrier to exporting America’s abundance may likely require giving them something they want. Morning Consult recently reported: “Momentum is building in Congress to repeal the antiquated ban on exporting crude oil. Lawmakers and energy industry representatives are talking about other energy policies that could be swapped or combined to achieve that objective. Renewable energy tax credits are part of the equation.”
Those “renewable energy tax credits” are mainly two: the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) and solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC). Like the oil-export ban, the wind PTC is an archaic policy that has no place in today’s modern reality of energy abundance.
Passed by Congress in 1992, the PTC pays the wind industry for every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated over a 10-year period. No other mature energy source—natural gas, oil, or coal—can claim a similar carve out based on how much product they sell. The subsidy is so lavish that wind developers can sometimes sell their electricity at a loss and still profit. The New York Times has described this as wind’s “cannibal behavior” on the power grid.
The PTC costs taxpayers like you and me billions of dollars each year. Americans pay for wind twice: first in their federal tax bills, then in their local utility bills. According to a new study, commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research, electricity generated from new wind facilities is between three and four times as expensive as that from existing coal and nuclear power plants,.
The Senate Finance Committee claims a 2-year extension would cost $10 billion over the next decade. After decades of subsidies and multiple PTC extensions, wind still generates less than 5% of our electricity.
Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS), who has long opposed the PTC extension, told me:
With a skyrocketing $16 trillion debt and an industry that is more than capable of standing on its own, there is no reason why the federal government should continue to subsidize the wind energy industry. Proponents of the Wind PTC continue to call for an extension—for the umpteenth time. This handout costs taxpayers billions and has caused significant price distortions in wholesale electricity markets that translate into real costs for everyday consumers. If we want a robust economy, it’s time to stop picking winners and losers in the energy marketplace and finally end the wind PTC. After two decades of pork, the wind looters need to stand on their own two feet. Most of the people in the wind industry I talk to know this, and I am confident that those individuals and others in the energy industry will enjoy many marketplace successes once we put a stop to the purely political policies that we have seen to date.
Despite the mountain of evidence against wind subsidies—including increasing reports of health issues and concerns over bird kills—this summer, before the August recess, the Senate Finance Committee rushed through a package of expired tax provisions, including the wind PTC. Now, wind lobbyists are looking for a legislative “vehicle” to latch on to, preferably one with bipartisan support, to push through another PTC extension without a fair hearing, which is exactly why they’re eyeing the oil-export bill.
According to The Hill, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said he could consider lifting the ban “only if it’s tied to a permanent extension of the wind and solar tax credits.”
Swapping the PTC for oil exports is a bad deal, as lifting the ban deserves to pass in its own right. But what many don’t realize is that trading the PTC for oil exports is also a Faustian bargain that furthers President Obama’s destructive climate-change agenda.
The PTC and the president’s climate agenda are related because Obama’s sweeping new carbon regulations, known as the “Clean Power Plan”—finalized in August—require states to drastically cut carbon dioxide emissions. It does this by shuttering low-cost coal plants and building new wind and solar facilities. The problem: wind and solar are uneconomic without massive taxpayer handouts like the PTC and the ITC and without market-distorting mandates like state Renewable Portfolio Standards.
This scheme is the centerpiece of Obama’s climate legacy, which he hopes to cement in December at the United Nations climate conference in Paris.
These carbon regulations will inflict severe burdens on American families—especially the poorest among us who can least afford to pay higher energy prices. A recent study by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, for instance, found that Obama’s carbon rule would increase Black and Hispanic poverty by 23% and 26%, respectively. For all that pain, the regulations will, perhaps, reduce global temperature rise by 0.018º Celsius in 2100—an undetectable amount.
Buried in hundreds of pages of “analysis,” the Environmental Protection Agency projects the wind industry will add more than 13 GW of electrical capacity each year from 2024 to 2030. For context, 13 GW is exactly how much capacity wind added in 2012, a record year. It is also the year in which rent-seeking wind barons rushed to build as many new turbines as possible to quality for the PTC, which expired at the end of the year. The following year, after the PTC expired, wind additions collapsed by more than 90%—which highlights the fact that the wind industry cannot survive in a free market.
This makes the wind PTC vital to Obama’s carbon regulations. His plan depends on exponential wind growth, and the wind industry depends on government handouts like the PTC to avoid total collapse, let alone grow.
By not accepting a wind PTC tradeoff, Congress can deal a blow to corporate wind welfare and Obama’s carbon regulations in one shot. Congress must strip the PTC out of tax extenders and refuse to use wind subsidies as a bargaining chip. The two are totally unrelated. One is a liquid fuel used primarily for transportation. The other: a way to generate electricity, albeit inefficiently, ineffectively and uneconomically. One helps our trade deficit problem and increases revenues as FuelFix reports: “liberalizing crude trade spurs more domestic production, with a resulting boost in government revenue from the activity.” The other: a hidden tax that hurts all Americans.
By rejecting an extension of the wind PTC and lifting the ban on oil exports, Congress would end corporate welfare for wind lobbyists, deal a blow to Obama’s costly carbon regulations, and free America’s entrepreneurs to provide abundant, affordable, and reliable energy for all.
In Britain achieving the first 10% of the so called renewable energy doubled our Electricity bills, this will only get worse as load balancing supply and demand get more top heavy (http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk). Stand by generation plant is kept idling, to cover high demands when the wind drops and the the Sun is obscured. This produces CO2 and wastes fuel, while green energy is being bought at up to ten times fossil fuel prices.
100% backup is required for all unreliable green generation, at 10% its difficult, but at 50% it will fail and power cuts become inevitable as costs escalate. If 100% were to be reached it would require double the load capacity, with half of it just ticking over with crews, maintenance, fuel and pollution. All to fulfill a fools energy Paradise.
Why will greenies not address these problems and reassure us, they keep banging on of saving our planet based on dubious data and flawed science. We deserve to hear how they intend to managed this problem with honestly and frankness?
based on dubious data and flawed science
What is the ideologically pure data, and tell us about this new free market NewScience that tells us about a NewPhysics that works only on earth?
Best,
D
Then explain how it works? Oh I forgot, you are one of those unable to explain the physics yourself.
Why not try to explain how the load and supply might be balanced instead?
Your claim of dubious data and flawed science, your burden of proof.
Best,
D
You have never answered any question, alway trying to wriggle out by asking another one! Lets just assume that you were correct for a while and energy must now be all green to counter your belief that Global Warming is about to destroy us all.
Can current levels of supply be maintained?
How can the loads and supply be balanced with unreliable generation?
If we use green energy for public transport will it be consistent?
Will we need a priority system or rationing of supply?
I asked first. You aren’t dissembling and deflecting to deflect away from a false statement, are you?
Best,
D
Good Lord NO, but as its been argued many times and you have always resorted to abuse I see little point in going over it. From the temperatures of seawater on ships being more that of monitoring buoys, so the buoys were all adjusted upwards to match commercial ships engine cooling water. The Arctic Ice Maps being redrawn to show consideably less ice when locally this is observed to be untrue. The increase in the Earths temperature which is overstated, and eventually is argued to decimal points which is beyond the monitored accuracy of the data. The Hockey stick that drops out the middle ages fluctuations in temperatures.
You argue in circles rather than explain how serious problems caused by energy legislation might be overcome. Why might this be? Do you think extra cost is worth it whatever?
Let’s try again:
What is the ideologically pure data
Tell us about this new free market NewScience that tells us about a NewPhysics that works only on earth.
Best,
D
No. You are just a green troll with no explanations or science to back your beliefs and you have never ever explained anything only given links to others.
No evidence for your assertions, then. Got it.
Best,
D
I wish you would get it troll.
I wish I would get your evidence too.
But you clearly have none, judging from your dissembling and hand-waving.
Best,
D
Hello, Brin Jenkins, I just like to find why environmentalism is ideologically and philosophically justified on purpose, especially when it comes to propagating “green energy”. Please let me know about this soon. Take care. – J.P.K.
Two questions come to mind. Will Obama sign a bill that doesn’t include the PTC provision and who is this Dem Markey who thinks he can call the shots?