News - American Energy Alliance

License to Kill

May 1, 2015 by AEA 5 Comments

According to a study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, wind turbines kill 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats every year. At one solar power plant in California, an estimated 3,500 birds died in just the plant’s first year of operation.

To add insult to injury, the Obama Administration finalized a regulation that allows wind energy companies and others to obtain 30-year permits to kill eagles without prosecution by the federal government in December of 2013. This “license to kill” often allows wind and solar companies to avoid punishment for their murderous tendencies, while oil and electric generating companies are forced to pay heavy fines for accidental bird deaths.

Click here to read IER’s full analysis on wind and solar’s propensity for decimating birds and bats – and why they so often go unpunished by the federal government.

Filed Under: Cartoons Tagged With: bats, birds, James Bond, Obama, solar, wind

Top Reasons Congress Should Reject a Gas Tax Hike

April 29, 2015 by AEA 13 Comments

Congress created the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) in 1956 to fund construction of the Interstate Highway System. The HTF is funded primarily though an 18.4-cent per gallon federal excise tax on gasoline. Funding for the HTF expires May 31, and with the HTF facing a budget shortfall, some in Congress have proposed raising the federal gasoline tax. Below are 6 reasons why Congress should reject any attempt to hike gasoline taxes to pay for the HTF.

The federal gas tax has outlived its usefulness. Congress originally created the gas tax in 1956 to fund the Interstate Highway System, which was completed decades ago. At the time it made sense to build an interstate highway system using federal funds because the highways, by definition, ran from state to state, sea to sea, border to border. But now that the interstate highways are built, there is much less of a need for the federal government to be involved because infrastructure needs are much more local rather than interstate in nature. Therefore, the primary responsibility for infrastructure development should be left to states and the private sector.

The HTF has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. More than 25 percent of HTF revenues are not spent on highways, but are diverted to subways, streetcars, buses, nature paths, and even squirrel sanctuaries. Instead of raising the gas tax, the federal government should rein in its wasteful non-highway spending. This would help close the HTF’s budget shortfall without raising taxes. Congress should not bail out the HTF on the backs of the American people.

Gas tax hike negates the benefits of affordable gasoline, hurts the poor. American families are expected to save more than $550 this year due to lower gas prices. Raising the federal gas tax would eat into those benefits, with low-income families getting hit the hardest. The bottom line: there is never a good time to raise taxes on the American people to fund a broken system in which the federal government no longer has business being involved.

Federal money comes with federal strings. The HTF requires states to send federal gas taxes to Washington and the federal government returns some of that revenue with strings attached. This allows the federal government to coerce states into enacting policies they may otherwise disagree with. For example, the reason that states increased the drinking age to 21-years-old was because the federal government required a 21-year old drinking age or the federal government would withhold some gas tax funding. Today, highway projects funded with federal dollars must meet federal requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Davis-Bacon Act on prevailing wages, among others. States should not accept these strings for money that was theirs to begin with.

The federal gas tax needlessly redistributes revenues. There is no need for the federal government to redistribute gasoline taxes other than as a tool to control states. States are better equipped than the federal government to meet the local needs of their residents. Gasoline taxes should stay in the state in which they were raised, and they should be used for roads, their intended purpose.

Let states be laboratories of democracy. There is no need to raise the federal gas tax—states already tax gasoline. Decisions over transportation funding are best made at the local level between states and the private sector. In recent years, some states have decided to raise their gas tax while others have not. Leaving these decisions to states and private partners encourages innovation and discourages the waste and abuse we’ve seen at the federal level.

Filed Under: Gas Tax Tagged With: congress, gas tax, Gasoline, highway trust fund

Energy Solutions Come from the Market – Not from Mandates

April 27, 2015 by Travis Fisher Leave a Comment

Last week, AEA Economist Travis Fisher wrote a Letter to the Editor in The Charlotte Observer regarding North Carolina’s renewable energy mandate. Fisher’s letter outlines the importance of freezing an energy mandate that has proven to be costly for North Carolinians. Below is an excerpt from the piece:

Renewable energy advocates claim a bill to freeze North Carolina’s 2007 energy mandate “dramatically disrupts” the state’s energy goals.

In reality, freezing the mandate is a practical solution to the real problem: political meddling.

From 2007 to 2013, U.S. production of natural gas from shale formations grew an amazing 783 percent, thanks to innovations such as the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

In contrast, a mandate on electricity from solar power and poultry waste is not a solution – it’s meddlesome and costly.

The right path forward is to repeal the energy mandate and unlock true innovation in energy.

Click here to read the rest of the letter.

Filed Under: Renewable Energy Mandates Tagged With: hydraulic fracturing, mandate, natural gas, north carolina, renewable energy

Raiding the Piggy Bank

April 24, 2015 by AEA 1 Comment

The Export-Import Bank’s authorization expires June 30. President Obama is lobbying Congress for reauthorization, but he has politicized Ex-Im beyond repair. The bank leaves taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to promote the president’s costly green energy agenda, which has resulted in shady dealings and high-profile flops. Meanwhile, the bank maintains its de facto ban on coal-fired power plants, denying a vital energy source to developing countries. Congress should let the Export-Import Bank expire.

Click here to read AEA’s full analysis on why Ex-Im should simply be allowed to expire.

Filed Under: Cartoons Tagged With: Export-Import Bank, Obama, renewables, Solyndra

Top 8 Ways to Rein in DOE Spending

April 24, 2015 by AEA Leave a Comment

Next week, the House will consider the FY 2016 DOE Appropriations bill. The Department of Energy has extended its reach into areas that are outside the bounds of the proper federal role with regard to energy. It should serve the public by providing basic research and development that is energy-source neutral and maintain the national laboratories to help advance innovation. Unfortunately, the DOE unfairly promotes and commercializes certain energy products and technologies, thereby stifling innovation and hampering the free market process. The House should use this opportunity to cut back on wasteful spending and federal intrusion in the energy and banking sector by strategically eliminating duplicative and wasteful programs in the Department of Energy. Here are the top areas the House should consider:

Eliminate DOE Loans and Loan Guarantees – DOE loans and loan guarantees are intended to promote “clean” energy technologies. There is no reason for the DOE to be in the banking business. There is plenty of private capital available for worthy projects. These loans and loan guarantees fund projects for political reasons, not economic ones. As a result, the DOE promotes ineffective technologies and cronyism. The Solyndra and Fisker Automotive debacles are but two examples of taxpayer dollars being used to fund corporate handouts. The DOE should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. (Specific savings are variable, but would reduce taxpayer exposure)

Eliminate programs in the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability – The goal of this office is to promote grid reliability, flexibility, and security. In reality, OE’s agenda is to force ineffective and costly technologies onto consumers. One glaring example is the Administration’s “SmartGrid” initiative, which aims to implant unreliable and hugely expensive “clean” energy sources into the electric grid under the guise of reliability. This initiative could not be further removed from reality. The private sector should determine which technologies and products work best, not the government. Est. savings 2016-2020 = $758 million

Eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – The role of this office is to promote and subsidize “clean energy” as determined by government bureaucrats. However, the government should not be in the business of trying to commercialize products and services it deems “clean”. This office aims to control multiple sectors of the economy, from energy production and transmission to manufacturing and construction. Cutting this office would help end large corporate handouts to failed technologies, such as the disastrous Chevy Volt bailout, and allow for true market-based innovation and development. Est. savings 2016-2020 = $9.78 billion

Cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy– FE’s goal is to fund development of fossil energy technologies. Just like in renewables, the federal government should not promote one energy source over another, including natural gas, coal, or oil. Programs that attempt to commercialize these technologies should be eliminated. The American people should determine which energy products and services work best, not federal bureaucrats. Est. savings 2016-2020 = $1.72 billion

Cut funding for the Office of Nuclear Energy – This office is tasked with “advanc[ing] nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the Nation’s energy…needs.” While nuclear energy is an important source of reliable and affordable energy, the DOE spends far too much money on modeling and commercialization. If nuclear technology is an energy source of the future then market forces should determine its future. Fixing the regulatory process and establishing a national waste repository as required by law would do significantly more to advance nuclear energy in this country than commercialization efforts at DOE. Est. savings 2016-2020 = $1.48 billion

Get rid of Power Marketing Administration subsidies – PMAs were originally developed to help provide affordable energy to rural consumers. However, PMAs can now sell electricity below market rates. This distorts the energy market and should be ended. Est. savings 2016-2020 = $438 million

Eliminate the Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists – This program, which intends to ensure that “the Nation have a sustained pipeline of highly skilled and diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers,” is something that can be done entirely by the private sector. There are already numerous programs set up that accomplish this, such as Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. Est. savings 2016 = $20.5 million

Eliminate the Office of Technology Transitions – Created in 2014, this office has the vague task of “developing and overseeing delivery of the DOE strategic vision and goals for technology commercialization and engagement with the business and industrial sectors across the US…” The government has no place in commercializing products. This department is simply a duplication of other DOE functions and should be entirely eliminated. Est. savings 2016-2020 = 2016 budget request unavailable

It is time to reel in the Department of Energy. Cutting or reducing the programs above would realize a savings of over $12.6 billion in the next five years. These cuts are sensible, achievable reductions that would benefit all Americans. See The Heritage Foundation’s Budget Book and Nick Loris’ DOE budget backgrounder for more information.

Filed Under: Energy Development Tagged With: budget, department of energy, DOE, fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables

Ten Reasons to Eliminate the Wind PTC

April 23, 2015 by AEA 8 Comments

This week, Reps. Kenny Marchant and Mike Pompeo introduced H.R. 1901, a bill to eliminate the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).This legislation has several important provisions. First, it repeals the inflation adjustment, which would save taxpayers approximately 35% for the reminder of the ten-year window. It slightly adjusts and tightens the “beginning of construction” language that determines whether a company qualifies for the subsidy. It also repeals the entire statutory framework on December 31, 2025 to ensure the subsidies do not drag out beyond the next decade. Lastly, it includes a sense of Congress that the PTC should not be extended and should remain expired.

If this legislation were to become law it would effectively wind down and end this taxpayer-funded subsidy. Below are ten reasons why Congress should eliminate the wind PTC:

1. It Increases Electricity Costs. Wind generation is not reliable because wind units produce electricity when the wind blows, not necessarily when people want electricity. Adding wind generation to the electric grid does not increase the usable capacity of the grid, because there are times when the wind does not blow. Wind, therefore, does not reduce the amount of reliable generation that is required to keep the lights on. As noted below, the PTC leads to cannibalistic pricing behavior, which makes some low-cost, reliable generators uneconomic. The reliable generators will need to be replaced with new facilities, increasing the cost of electricity in the long run.

2. It is a Special Interest Handout: As Warren Buffett explains, “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” Buffett made it clear that the PTC is most beneficial to wealthy wind developers who are able to reduce their tax rate at the expense of the rest of the taxpayers and ratepayers.

3. It Threatens the Reliability of the Electricity Grid: No matter how many subsidies and mandates the government provides to prop up wind energy, they cannot fix one of its fundamental flaws: unreliability. The wind follows the weather, not Americans’ energy needs. In fact, wind output is often lowest when energy demand is highest. This constant variation of wind output puts significant strain on the electric grid, which increases the risk of blackouts.

4. It Encourages “Cannibal Behavior”: The PTC allows wind producers to pay the grid to take their power and still profit. This “negative pricing”—or “cannibal behavior” as The New York Times reported—has contributed to premature plant retirements, including Dominion’s Kewaunee Nuclear Plant and Entergy’s Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant.

5. It Destroys More Jobs than it Creates: The PTC leads to net destruction of jobs by diverting capital away from projects that make the most financial sense and increasing the cost of electricity in the long run. For instance, an analysis of Spain’s green energy subsidies found that for every job created, 2.2 jobs were destroyed elsewhere in the economy.

6. It Stifles Innovation: Industries that grow dependent on government are much less likely innovate to make their product better. The Wind PTC is over 20 years old. The technology of wind energy, compared to other energy sources (think massive technology advances in oil and natural gas), has not significantly improved over those three decades—wind power still cannot help keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing. These handouts have contributed to its failure to become market viable.

7. It is Crucial to the EPA Power Plant Regulations: The EPA is pursuing aggressive regulations of existing power plants that amount to a federal takeover of the electricity system. One of the goals of this regulation is to shift electricity from sources like coal toward renewable energy like wind. Without the Wind PTC, mandating renewables is a much more difficult task. Extending the Wind PTC helps enable this federal takeover by the EPA.

8. It Ignores Environmental Drawbacks of Wind Energy: Advocates dub wind “Clean Energy,” yet wind has numerous environmental drawbacks. Wind facilities kill millions of birds and bats, including endangered and threated species like bald and golden eagles. In addition, wind turbines are manufactured with rare earth minerals mined mostly from China under horrific environmental conditions. Lastly, industrial wind developments use a lot of land for a small amount of energy

9. It Props Up an Old, Failed Technology: Wind energy is not a new, “infant” industry as the wind lobby claims. Wind turbines have been used to produce electricity for over 100 years. It did not take long to figure out back then that wind was an unreliable, expensive form of energy. Despite billions of dollars in taxpayer support over decades, not much has changed today. Wind is still an unreliable, expensive form of energy.

10. It Promotes an Energy Source that Depends on Other Energy Sources: Many proponents of the PTC claim wind energy can break our “dependence” on fossil fuels. Yet, wind energy would not be possible without natural gas, oil, and coal. These fuels are needed to manufacture, deliver, and maintain wind turbines. Additionally, back up power, dominated by natural gas and coal, is necessary because of the earlier mentioned reliability issues with wind. Wind is very much dependent on other fuels and would not be possible without them.

The American Energy Alliance supports eliminating the wind PTC and urges all Members of Congress to co-sponsor H.R. 1901. Co-sponsorship of this legislation will be calculated into our American Energy Scorecard.

Click here for AEA’s scorecard alert for H.R. 1901

Filed Under: Blog, Wind Tagged With: electricity, Marchant, Pompeo, wind energy, wind ptc

PTC Elimination Act Protects American Families

April 22, 2015 by AEA Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON – Today, the American Energy Alliance lauded Representatives Kenny Marchant and Mike Pompeo for introducing H.R. 1901, a bill to eliminate the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

The bill tightens eligibility requirements for new wind projects, ends an inflation adjustment provision—saving taxpayers about 35 percent—and repeals the underlying statute so the subsidies will stop flowing by 2025.

“The wind lobby says it wants certainty on the wind PTC and that’s exactly what this bill accomplishes,” said American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle.

“The PTC was intended to be a temporary subsidy for a fledgling industry, but has morphed into a massive handout for large corporations, many of which are foreign owned—all at the expense of the American taxpayers. It’s a textbook case of corporate welfare.

“Every year Big Wind clamors for an extension of the PTC while at the same time claiming they don’t need the credit to be competitive. It’s past time for the wind industry to sink or swim on its own merits.

“Congressmen Marchant and Pompeo are offering up reasonable reforms that give certainty to wind producers while protecting the long-term interests of American families. Now it’s upon the wind industry to meet Congress halfway and prove that they are ready and willing to get off the government dole.”

Additionally, AEA will include co-sponsoring the PTC Elimination Act as a component of a Member’s final score in our American Energy Scorecard.

Click here to read AEA’s scorecard alert for H.R. 1901, the PTC Elimination Act.

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Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: Marchant, Pompeo, taxpayers, wind ptc

Time to Break Obama’s Big Green Bank

April 21, 2015 by Alex Fitzsimmons 1 Comment

A growing chorus of opposition is emerging against the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The bank’s authorization expires June 30, but while President Obama and his corporate cronies are lobbying for reauthorization, a coalition of organizations representing millions of Americans sent a letter to Congress calling for an end to Ex-Im, which “unfairly hurts domestic companies and risks billions of taxpayer dollars.”

The Ex-Im Bank is the official export credit agency of the U.S. government. The bank’s stated mission “is to ensure that U.S. companies—large and small—have access to the financing they need to turn export opportunities into sales.” While the bank claims it does not “compete with private institutions” but merely “fills gaps in the trade finance market,” Ex-Im has gained a reputation for favoring large, politically connected firms to the detriment of small businesses, the free market, and American families.

Ex-Im’s cronyism can be seen across the economy, particularly in the energy space. Over the last few years, the Obama administration has used Ex-Im to advance its costly green energy agenda, which has been marked by questionable dealings and spectacular failures. While Ex-Im props up costly renewables, it continues to restrict financing for affordable coal-fired power plants, which have the potential to lift millions of people in the developing world out of poverty.

The federal government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers, and it has a poor record of doing so. As explained below, the Ex-Im bank is no exception.

Green Energy Cronyism

The Ex-Im Bank has a congressional mandate to “increase support for environmentally beneficial U.S. exports, including…renewable sources of energy.” In 2009, Ex-Im “significantly increased its support for renewable-energy exports” to the tune of $257 million in FY 2013, $355.5 million in FY 2012, $721.4 million in FY 2011, $332 million in FY 2010, and $101 million in FY 2009. This “support” typically comes in the form of taxpayer-backed loan guarantees and other financing mechanisms.

As the Mercatus Center explains, these figures likely understate the true cost of Ex-Im’s green energy advocacy to taxpayers. (Mercatus points out that Ex-Im often misclassifies projects). The following chart shows that Ex-Im has doled out more than $19 billion for natural gas, solar, nuclear, and wind projects between FY2007 and FY2014. That represents 11 percent of Ex-Im’s total subsides.

The bank’s generous taxpayer “assistance” has resulted in a slew of questionable dealings and high-profile failures. Here are a few examples:

Solyndra: Ex-Im approved a $10 million loan guarantee to a Belgian bank that financed the purchase of solar panels from Solyndra, a firm tied to the Obama administration that went bankrupt after leaving taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Exports In Name Only: Ex-Im approved subsidies for a company to sell solar panels to itself and call it an “export,” a Washington Examiner investigation revealed. The bank issued $455.7 million in loan guarantees for a Canadian company, St. Clair Solar, to buy solar panels from First Solar. The problem: First Solar owns St. Clair—so First Solar shipped solar panels to itself, taxpayers subsidized the sale, and Ex-Im called it an “export.”
Double Dipping: As Mercatus points out, several large energy companies, some of which are foreign-owned, have received taxpayer subsidies from multiple federal programs in addition to handouts from Ex-Im. Examples include:
- Gamesa, a Spanish wind firm: $1.3 billion total (including Ex-Im).
- Areva, a French nuclear company: $2.1 billion.
- Abengoa, a solar and biofuel conglomerate: $3 billion.

Ex-Im Keeps Developing World in the Dark

While the Ex-Im Bank funnels taxpayer resources toward questionable green energy projects, it denies financing for affordable and reliable coal-fired power plants. In December 2013, Ex-Im announced that coal plants could no longer receive financing unless they installed carbon capture and storage technology.

This represents a de facto ban on coal. Carbon capture technology has proven an expensive flop for U.S. taxpayers. The technology does not exist at the commercial level in this country, despite years of subsidies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There is just one utility-scale CCS plant in the world, a refurbished Canadian plant that cost $1.35 billion, which is three times as much as it would cost to build a similar-sized plant from scratch without CCS.

While IER opposes all energy subsidies, it is illogical to subsidize expensive renewable energy projects but restrict financing for affordable coal plants. More than 1.3 billion people around the world lack access to electricity, which is strongly correlated with increased life expectancy, education, and economic prosperity. Renewables simply cannot fulfill all the energy needs of the world’s energy poor. By restricting coal financing, Ex-Im is cutting off developing countries from one of the only energy sources that holds the potential to lift them out of darkness and poverty.

This double standard shows the blatant politicization of Ex-Im. President Obama wants to reauthorize the bank but maintain his coal restrictions. This demonstrates that the president has no interest in using Ex-Im to fund to the most economical projects, but rather to bankroll politically favored companies. Ex-Im’s political agenda squanders taxpayer resources that could be put to more productive use by the private sector—such as financing construction of coal-fired power plants in the developing world.

Conclusion

Filed Under: Energy Development Tagged With: Export-Import Bank, Green Energy, Obama, subsidies

Nanny Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo’s Plan to Turn Off the Lights

April 20, 2015 by AEA Leave a Comment

Last week, AEA President Thomas Pyle penned an op-ed in the New York Post entitled “Lights Out, New York.” In the piece, Pyle explains how former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are turning off the lights on New York’s energy and economic future. Below is the text of the op-ed:

Lights Out, New York
By Thomas Pyle

High electric bills. An undependable power supply. Withering jobs in an economy increasingly dragged down.

That seems to be New York’s energy future. And for that we have to thank state (and national) environmentalists — and compliant leaders here who are intent on moving “beyond” the current practical options for producing juice.

It’s a campaign, frankly, that defies sanity.

Take New York City’s former mayor, Mike Bloomberg. As mayor, “sustainability” was a major priority for him. And though he’s out of office, he’s still causing trouble.

Recently he pledged a personal contribution of $30 million to the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign. Before that, he pledged $50 million. The goal: to shut down half of all US coal plants by 2017 — which produce enough power for more than 134 million Americans — in a dubious effort to control the Earth’s temperature.

When the Potomac River Generating Station (a coal-fired power plant that supplied power to Washington, including the White House) closed in 2012, Bloomberg & Co. took credit, firing off a self-congratulatory press release that touted “a great step forward for the Beyond Coal campaign.”

Guess what? Last week, the lights went out. An outage cut off power to the White House, the State Department and some downtown areas. And though it’s impossible to know for sure, it well might be that the power failure could have been avoided if the Potomac plant were still running.

New York doesn’t rely heavily on coal, the nation’s most affordable, abundant and reliable energy source. But vanquishing coal is just one front in a larger anti-energy crusade. For example, while Bloomberg wages his private war on coal, his environmentalist allies and state leaders are trying to move New York beyond natural gas and nuclear power, the state’s two largest sources of electricity.

In a shameful, drawn-out cave-in to pressure groups, for example, Gov. Cuomo in December finally banned fracking (hydraulic fracturing) outright. That will deny New Yorkers access to abundant natural-gas supplies in their own state.

Not only will such a ban drive up energy costs, it will also kill off jobs. One resident of New York’s beleaguered Southern Tier described his town as “dead in the water now,” thanks to Cuomo. (Even Bloomberg criticized Cuomo’s ban as “misguided.”)

Ultimately, Cuomo wants to move the Empire State beyond coal, natural gas and nuclear — and into an energy abyss. (New York laws already restrict oil use, too, by the way.)

Most notably, the governor has long opposed the Indian Point nuclear plant, which he once called a “catastrophe waiting to happen.”

Last summer, state regulators quietly proposed idling the plant for 100 days per year, ostensibly to protect fish during breeding season.

Entergy, the plant’s operator, points to more sinister motives: “This is not about science. This is about closing what is a safe, clean, environmentally responsible facility that generates electricity in a cost-effective manner for New Yorkers.” Entergy says the move would cost billions per year and could make the plant uneconomic.

While Cuomo bans fracking and shuns nuclear, he’s smitten for solar. Last spring, the governor announced plans to spend $1 billion to boost New York’s solar output by 3 gigawatts — a tenfold increase over the next decade.

That works out to $333,000 per megawatt-hour, which is more than 17,000 times the $19.26 cost New York residents currently pay for electricity.

New York already has the fourth-highest residential electric rates in the country (made worse by the state’s outrageous energy taxes). Cuomo’s policies will push those prices higher still, while leaving the state’s energy supply vulnerable to the whims of the weather. All of which will make it harder to live here, do business here and create jobs here.

Just as climate scientists can’t blame any single weather event on global warming, we can’t definitively quantify the impact of New York’s mindless anti-fossil-fuel and anti-nuclear policies.

But we do know for sure that the “beyond energy” policies of advocates like Cuomo, Bloomberg and the environmental lobby will boost costs, make blackouts more likely and take a tragic toll on the economy.

Even climate-change folks admit that “healing the planet” is a tall order. But this man-made disaster has an easy fix: Get folks like Cuomo and Bloomberg to stand down.

Click here to see the original op-ed.

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Filed Under: Press Releases

Daily Beast: Hillary’s Big Iowa Flip-Flop

April 20, 2015 by AEA Leave a Comment

Last week, Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, penned an op-ed discussing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s convenient flip-flop on ethanol. Bryce points out that after voting against ethanol 17 times in the Senate, Hillary’s presidential aspirations made her quickly change her tune in 2007. An excerpt from the piece follows:

As Clinton and her allies said back in 2002, the corn ethanol requirements are an anti-consumer government mandate. Between 2007 and 2014, the cost premium for ethanol over an energy-equivalent amount of gasoline has averaged 92 cents per gallon. Total cost to consumers over that eight-year period: about $83 billion. And the ripoff continues. This year, the RFS will require motorists to purchase about 13 billion gallons of ethanol. (Federal legislators, including, notably, California’s Dianne Feinstein, have filed bills to repeal the RFS.)

To be clear, other presidential hopefuls are also bowing and scraping in front of the corn lobby. Republican Jeb Bush, to his credit, at least says he wants a gradual phase out of the RFS. Rand Paul, that great defender of libertarianism, has proposed legislation that could allow the ethanol scammers to blend even more of their expensive Franken-fuel into our gasoline. Only Texas senator Ted Cruz has come out squarely opposed, calling the RFS “corporate welfare.”

But among the candidates, Clinton stands alone as the one who’s flipped stances on ethanol to one that is diametrically opposed to the interests of consumers. As of Tuesday, there was scant information about Clinton’s energy policies – or any other positions — on her website. Nevertheless, if she were going to buck Iowa’s corn barons she would have said so by now.

Clinton’s ethanol flip-flop is particularly egregious given that she wants to position herself as a champion of the little guy. On Sunday, the Associated Press quoted “senior advisers” from her campaign who said that her focus will be on “strengthening economic security for the middle class and expanding opportunities for working families.”

If she were serious about putting more cash into the pockets of ordinary citizens, she would be opposing the corn ethanol tax. Instead, she supports it. And therein lie two stories: the first illustrates Clinton’s ambition; the second illustrates just how thoroughly Iowa and Big Corn have corrupted the presidential selection process. And that corruption costs American motorists every time they pull up to the pump.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

Filed Under: Renewable Fuel Standard Tagged With: ethanol, Hillary Clinton, Iowa, rfs