The Snob Appeal of Regressive Solar Energy Taxes

Recently, the mainstream media has been surprised that a few "conservatives" are becoming "converts" to green solar power while missing the bigger story that "liberals" across-the-board are now supporting regressive "green power" taxation.

The January 12 issue of the Daily Breeze newspaper in the South Bay of Los Angeles believes it was newsworthy to caption a column by New York Times reporter Gregory Dicum "Seeing the Light: Political conservatives begin to embrace solar power as an alternative energy." http://www.dailybreeze.com/today/articles/5167237.html Dicum reports to his astonishment that a Dr. William Leininger, a doctor at the Naval Medical Center of San Diego, a Republican living in conservative San Diego, is

"one of thousands of Californians, many of them unlikely converts to the cause of alternative energy, who have installed solar power systems in their homes in just the last year."

Dr. Leininger is reported to have joined notable liberal movie stars and others in this fashionable trend.

"Solar power is also emerging as a kind of status symbol, a glamorous mark of personal responsibility. Celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Alicia Silverstone and Carols Santana have installed solar systems. Edward Norton runs a campaign aimed at his fellow celebrities in Los Angeles, encouraging them to install solar panels on their homes and make donations for systems in low-income housing."

The impetus for this designer environmentalism is the $2.9 billion California Solar Initiative initiated by the California Public Utilities Commission without voter or legislative approval. The California Solar Initiative is a mirror image of legislation that failed to gain legislative approval prior to the CPUC enactment (The California Solar Initiative is not the same as the Million Solar Roofs Initiative- SB1).

Is it any wonder that the bonding capacity of the State of California is quickly getting maxed-out as agencies like the CPUC can usurp the legislature, the governor, and the voters and issue its own bonds? The California Solar Initiative is another example of why California is called "the ungovernable state," run mostly by bureaucratic agencies and powerful unions in a state where the voters believe that Proposition 13 limits such excesses.

The CPUC Initiative plans to install solar systems on one million roofs over 11 years. Rooftop solar systems, which typically cost from $15,000 to $25,000 and up, would be subsidized by roughly one-third. A Federal tax credit of $2,000 is also available to homeowners for installation of such systems.

But leave it to a New York Times reporter to twist the story and miss the bigger issue: Since when was it "liberal" or "progressive" to enact a regressive tax on the working and middle classes to further what American thinker Thorsten Veblen once called "conspicuous consumption" of the "leisure class?"

Solar power subsidies and tax credits for preservation easements are the liberal flip side of farm subsidies and grazing leases for conservatives. Perhaps even more importantly than the issue of whether subsidies further public or political goals, California's Solar Initiative signals the growth of a new non-economic green economy. In the past, government subsidies have typically been used to assist those who cannot afford some desired energy or social policy. We have now inverted that to subsidize those who can more easily afford such systems without such subsidies.

The whole idea of the California Solar Initiative is to use coercive government to stimulate the development of a solar industry which conceivably could be weaned away from subsidies as prices eventually dropped. Reportedly, over 7,000 homeowners filed applications for solar installations in California in 2006, which exceeds the about 4,000 applications in the two preceding years. But solar power will have a long way to go to become competitive with conventional energy systems. The projected future energy cost of home-based solar power is three to four times that of coal and natural gas. And that is considering that the cost of the fuel (sunlight) and transmission is free; and not factoring into the equation the cost of back-up conventional power plants due to the unreliability of the sun on cloudy days and the wind on calm days.

Projected future electricity cost assuming large-scale development (cents/kilowatt hour in U.S. $ as of 2000) Coal - 5.5 to 7.5 cents Natural gas - 5.5 to 7.0 Nuclear - 6 to 10 Hydro - 6 to 8 Wind - 6 to 8 Biomass - 6 to 8 Solar/PV - 15 to 20 (excluding transmission costs) (Mark Jaccard, Sustainable Fossil Fuels - 2005)

California electricity ratepayers might actually suffer a quadruple whammy as Investor-Owned Utilities (IOU's) like PG&E, SDG&E, and So Cal Edison, and municipal utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other city-owned utilities around the state, might have to pay for solar power, pay for rebates, pay for back-up power, and pay for rate insurance in the event of failure of solar systems. A member of the California Energy Commission is quoted in the January 20 issue of the Los Angeles Times as saying that one third of contracts for green power are failures. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-power20jan20,1,2686902.story?coll=la-headlines-business)

Where are the consumer advocacy organizations such as The Utility Reform Network (TURN), a leftist pro-union and anti-business organization funded by electricity ratepayers through the CPUC? http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=17381&catcode=33. Where are the "Evangelical Left" and the "Religious Progressives" in championing the cause of low income persons who will bear the burden of this regressive taxation? http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=25847&catcode=33. They are silent because they are captive to the powerful cultural force of leftist environmental ideology.

The ambitious but pre-mature effort of California to create a market for conventional solar power for homeowners is meant to replace energy markets with government mandates and regressive tax policies and rebates and crony-capitalism for the well-connected. The whole idea is to create a green energy sector that is "clean" but uneconomic; and the cost of which is to be born disproportionately by those who cannot afford to pay for such designer rooftop solar systems. But that story isn't big enough to make headlines in the mainstream media due to the powerful cultural symbolic force of environmentalism. Right now green power is on a roll and nothing can seem to stop it. In the past this has been a sure prescription for long-term policy disaster. http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=26082

There is, and will always be, only one sustainable reason to install any alternative energy system.

Economics.

The touchy-feely Left has no sense, has never had any sense, and does not own the environment issue, and never has.

Their approach is a combination of suicidal charity and guilt.

A conservative's approach is a better product for a better price.

2 posted on 01/21/2007 1:19:55 AM PST by Stallone (War and Politics: When the Enemy begins to feel pain, they change their behavior to avoid it.)

I'd be willing to pay slightly more for home solar power an additional reason. It's mostly self-sufficient. I'll gladly pay a little more for a product that doesn't leave me with a monthly bill or isn't dependent on a public service which might not be there when I really need it.

The problem as I see it is that solar power technology hasn't really advanced enough to make it cost effective yet. As of today, it's not a matter of paying "slightly" or "a little" more. Solar still costs more than double what electricity from the grid costs, so I'll have to put off that little bit of self sufficiency for another decade or so.

New technology is looking interesting and promising, like solar panel roof shingles that replace asphalt ones.

Try stopping consumers from buying quality products that actually save you money and improve our environment.

The government can then go back to just corruption and squandering, instead of intruding in our lives.

4 posted on 01/21/2007 5:34:49 AM PST by Stallone (War and Politics: When the Enemy begins to feel pain, they change their behavior to avoid it.)

This reminds me of when that GM electric car, the EV1, was released. First, California liberals got a law passed mandating the sale of some electric cars in the state. Then, they had the federal government subsidize the program with $1.25 billion of taxpayer money. These subsidies allowed GM to lease the cars as if they cost half of their $80,000 cost to manufacture. Despite that, few would lease a slow, two-seat $40,000 car with a range of less than 100 miles in the late 1990s, which also required a $2,500 specialized charger.

Who leased EV1s? Wealthy liberals. I don't know if Ed Begley Jr. leased or bought his.

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