Free Republic

Incentive programs for electric cars and solar panels mostly benefit those who can afford those things, while regulations that drive up the cost of energy hurt those who can't afford much to begin with. ... a growing rift on in the environmental world between those who favor the state's far-reaching "green" policies—and those who want to hector us to use less energy. "Wealth is a prominent driver of demand for residential energy, ... a constant theme from the environmental community when it comes to every resource-related policy debate, from electricity production to fossil fuels to water availability. Activists talk about...

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz received an anti-endorsement from the governor of Iowa, Tuesday, host of the country's lead-off presidential caucus, on account of his failure to support renewable fuels like ethanol.Gov. Terry Branstad,a Republican who has not endorsed any of the GOP presidential candidates for president, said at a renewable fuels conference near Des Moines that Iowans should reject Cruz because he supports phasing out the fuel standard.His comments,which come within two weeks of the state's critical Feb. 1 caucus,could resonate with state farmers who grow the corn used in ethanol,and the soybeans widely used in biodiesel or risk...

A long-time goal for many energy minded conservatives may finally be on the horizon this week as congress considers lifting the more than forty year old ban on crude oil exports as part of the next spending bill. This would be great news for jobs and the economy, not to mention giving us some leverage to help out our allies who currently rely on Russian and middle eastern suppliers. Unfortunately, such a boon still requires help from at least some of the Democrats and their attitude is less than positive. The Hill was interviewing a few of them on Thursday...

Originally established in 1992, the wind energy production tax credit has had a lot to do with fueling the growth of the nation's wind energy generating capacity since its inception. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports just how much the installed capacity for wind has grown in the years from 2000 through 2012, much of which has been enabled by the wind energy production tax credit subsidy: So with that kind of "success", why does the wind energy industry need a permanent tax credit? After all, the purpose of the tax credit was to greatly accelerate the growth of the...

Last year, Congress agreed to $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts, unless politicians find other things to cut. They didn't, of course. So now, with so-called sequestration looming in January, panic has set in. Even the new "fiscally responsible" Republicans vote against cutting Energy Department handouts to companies like Solyndra and subsidies to sugar producers. Many claim that any cut in military spending will weaken America and increase unemployment. It's another demonstration of the politicians' addiction to spending -- and how we are complicit. "One more infrastructure bill" or "this jobs plan" will jumpstart the economy, and then we'll kick...

Enterprise Community Investment, Inc. today announced the closing of the first loan under the Green Refinance Plus program, a partnership between Fannie Mae and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) introduced last year to incentivize energy and resource efficiency improvements in affordable housing.

A billion dollars from housing, schools, hospitals and health programs was drawn into solar subsidies to provide electricity that could have been produced in far cheaper ways. There is no sunnier first world country than Australia. If solar was going to be a raging success anywhere, surely it would be in the land of the Sunburnt Country. Instead the Australian government has poured in more than a billion dollars to install solar panels on the roof tops of private homes.  It’s a text book case of misdirected spending. In the end the government drew money from the population-at-large to help...