{"id":2828,"date":"2010-09-28T07:59:58","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T11:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2010-09-28T12:13:28","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T16:13:28","slug":"its-time-for-green-energy-to-hide-its-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/09\/28\/its-time-for-green-energy-to-hide-its-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s time for green energy to hide its subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmentalists took a beating this year on their top issue, the fight to tax carbon emissions so that polluters would have a powerful new economic incentive to clean up their act.<\/p>\n

Politico is speculating<\/a> that the Obama administration’s “green czar” may step down, overwhelmed by the political and bureaucratic obstacles to real change.<\/p>\n

So greenies need a quick, easy and meaningful win and here’s one that could really change the game:\u00a0 Hiding the renewable-energy subsidies.<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

Currently, when Americans gobble up energy, we don’t realize that it’s all subsidized.\u00a0 The Federal government props up oil and gas companies to the tune of around $4.5 billion dollars a year, mostly in the form of tax breaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But that complicated — and controversial — reality is hidden from us.<\/p>\n

We don’t often connect the dots between wars in Iraq or hugely costly oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and our driving habits.<\/p>\n

All we know is that we get reasonably cheap energy when we go to the gas pump, or have our fuel-oil tank filled for the winter.<\/p>\n

The same isn’t true for renewable or conservation subsidies.\u00a0 If you want to buy a high-efficiency refrigerator, for example, you usually have to apply for rebates.<\/p>\n

Same goes for buying a hybrid car.\u00a0 You have to jump through government hoops to do the right thing — and that’s if the subsidies are available at the time when you’re ready to buy.<\/p>\n

And if you want government help to put up a wind tower, install solar panels, or build using a geothermal heat system, you are opening yourself to a world of bureaucratic ballyhoo.<\/p>\n

You’ll be filling out forms and dealing with state or Federal agencies until you’re blue in the face.<\/p>\n

A quick and non-controversial reform of this system would simply shift the subsidies to the manufacturers and the distributors — along with a mandate that every penny in Federal aid be passed along to the consumer.<\/p>\n

That way, when I go to buy a new solar panel array, or a new Prius, it costs a third less than it used to right out of the box.\u00a0 And I don’t have to worry about filling out forms and paperwork.<\/p>\n

The green energy industry should, in effect, borrow the oil and gas industry’s “hide the subsidy” approach.<\/p>\n

We’ve known for years that the biggest hurdle to going green is the start-up cost, the up-front investment.<\/p>\n

If government can help people over that threshhold without tangling them up in red tape, we might spark a real conservation revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmentalists took a beating this year on their top issue, the fight to tax carbon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}