Americans for Prosperity (bankrolled by the Koch Brothers) is getting the members of the Tea Party all riled up against solar power in Georgia using direct mail packed with alarming lies about huge rate increases to come if Georgia Power would include a mandate to transition to providing some target percentage of renewable power in their 20 year plan being formulated now.
Your daily jolt: Solar power divides two Georgia tea party groups
By Jim Galloway
We also told you that McDonald’s initiative, to be voted on by the five-member utility board next week, had the endorsement of Debbie Dooley, a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots.
Another tea party group has now entered the fray – on the opposite side. From Walter Jones of Morris News Service:
Americans for Prosperity emailed its 50,000 Georgia members urging them to oppose requiring more solar. It argues that unless its members take action their bills could increase 40 percent.
Virginia Galloway, Americans for Prosperity’s state director and one of the earliest organizers of the anti-tax rallies in 2009 that spawned the tea-party movement, says renewable-energy mandates in other states led to 40-percent higher electricity costs.
“It’s like saying you have to buy groceries this week and you have to buy a certain amount from Whole Foods ... and I can get everything at Publix less expensively,” she said.
The reference to “fossil fuel interests”? Yes, that would be the Koch brothers, who largely bankroll AFP.
The reality is the costs of solar power have been dropping precipitously recently.
The bright spot for the U.S. solar market in 2013: home roof tops
The utility market, in which solar power projects are built for utilities or for selling power to utilities, will likely set a record by installing 2.3GW of solar panels in 2013. The first quarter of this year saw the completion of 24 utility scale projects. The average price for a utility system dropped 26 percent year over year to reach $2.14 per watt during the first quarter of 2013.
So there we have it. Some delusional obscenely rich brothers can write a check, calling on their gullible political pawns to screw their own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren out of a less diminished quality of life. And many who read the Koch Brothers' lies about solar power, will accept them at face value without any verification.