Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Obama's Costly Tax Breaks on Dubious Green Ventures !


Most American taxpayers found a significant chuck of change missing from the recent paycheck thanks to a last-minute congressional scramble to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, but for many alternative energy companies the deal was a Tax Break Bonanza that will cost the federal government $18 billion in lost revenues over the next decade. Money that could've and should've been spent on aging infrastructure like highways and bridges. Once again Obama's ignorance of the failure of global warming to materialize after 17 years of flat temperatures, has him spending like a drunken sailor on dubious ventures.

Companies still experimenting with wind to power electricity were the biggest winners landing an obscene $12 billion in tax credits!  Another victory was scored by algae growers, yes...algae growers! They will get $59 million in tax breaks to encourage production of cellulosic biofuel, which still doesn't actually exist but has been mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use by refineries. This is despite that recent coal shale deposits that will yield more oil than Saudi Arabia and be a resource for hundreds of years to come. Adding insult to injury, the algae tax break was passed just days before the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufactures (AFPM)   petitioned the EPA, again, to waive the cellolosic biofuel mandate because no domestic supply has existed more than 5 years ago. Get this...there's even $7 million for the makers of electric motorcycles and three-wheel plug-in vehicles.

Congress never fails to disappoint, even in times of fiscal crisis,'' said Charles T. Drevna, president of the AFPM. ''In this case, by using taxpayers' money to prop up a politically correct renewable energy industry that would otherwise be non-existent without government subsidies." Drevna continued, ''Furthermore, this administration has clearly and openly favored its version of 'all-of-the-above'  energy sources, by handing out millions in subsidies to wind, solar, biofuels and other forms of dubious renewable energy that will to higher energy prices for all Americans.''  I am quite sure Al Gore is not only rubbing his hands together but holding them out for more. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) on Senate floor last month said the tax credit for the wind turbine industry is fleecing American taxpayers. He said, ''This is a proposal that is as brazen as a mid-day bank robbery on Main Street! The wind industry, comprised of multi-billion dollar companies (like G.E.), can and must be able to stand on its own two feet.''

A report on the use of wind power in California in the L.A. Times last month showed that mandated solar and wind power is so unreliable that the demand on power plants using fossil fuels has actually increased. The Times stated, ''Wind and solar energy are called intermittent sources, because the power they produce can suddenly disappear when a cloud bank comes across or the wind stops blowing. in just a half an hour, a thousand megawatts of electricity - the output of a nuclear reactor - can disappear and threaten stability of the grid.''  Now more than 30 states foolishly now mandate that wind power be used to generate power. No one thinks to build more nuclear reactors. The Heritage Foundation says the wind industry has become too dependent upon government subsidies and is spending too much time and resources lobbying government for tax breaks, rather than creating new innovations to lower the cost of power.

The Way I See It....Congress and Obama's warmist mania are prolonging some of the worst energy policy. The extra cost to consumers using just 3.5% of electricity generated from wind is enormous, at an estimated $10 billion a year, according to the American Tradition Institute. Interestingly, the construction of massive wind turbine farms across miles and miles of country has also created controversy within an important segment of President Obama's base of supporters....the dreaded environmentalists.

The American Bird Conservancy filed a lawsuit last summer against the Department of the Interior claiming that wind power projects are killing large numbers of bats and birds.  On July 27, last year I posted a article entitled, "The Green Movement's Inconvenient Truth'' exposing this very problem with wind farms and their dire consequences, obviously not only in the United States, but it's happening worldwide.

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