Hye-Jin Kim and Rachel J. Cross of the Frontier Group, and Bret Fanshaw of the Environment America Research & Policy Center have produced an important new report to inform the resistance. The 45-page report is titled Blocking the Sun—Utilities and Fossil Fuel Interests that Are Undermining American Solar Power. Here is an excerpt from its executive summary:
This report documents 20 fossil fuel-backed groups and electric utilities running some of the nation’s most aggressive campaigns to slow the growth of solar energy in 12 states, including eight attempts to reduce net metering benefits and seven attempts to create demand charges for customers with solar power. Citizens and policy-makers must be aware of the tools that utilities are using to undermine solar energy across America and redouble their commitment to strong policies that move the nation toward a clean energy future.
A national network of utility interest groups and fossil fuel-backed think tanks has provided the funding, model legislation and political cover to discourage the growth of rooftop solar power.
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The Edison Electric Institute, the trade group that represents U.S. investor-owned electric utilities, launched the current wave of attacks on solar in 2012. Since then, EEI has worked with the American Legislative Exchange Council to create model legislation to repeal state renewable electricity standards and attack net metering.
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The American Legislative Exchange Council also provides utility and fossil fuel interests with access to state legislators, and its anti-net metering policy resolution has inspired legislation in states like Washington and Utah.
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The Koch brothers have provided funding to the national fight against solar by funneling tens of millions of dollars through a network of opaque nonprofits. The Koch-funded campaign organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has carried out anti-solar organizing efforts.
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The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is a Houston-based front group for the utility and fossil fuel industry, representing companies like Florida Power and Light, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell Oil. CEA has spent resources and shipped representatives across the country to help utilities fight their battles in states like Florida, Indiana, Maine and Utah.
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The state industry group Indiana Energy Association successfully lobbied on behalf of the state’s biggest electric utilities to end net metering, replacing it instead with a new solar policy that limits consumer compensation for generating rooftop power.
At the state level, electric utilities have used the support provided by national anti-solar interests, as well as their own ample resources, to attack key solar energy policies. [...]
As of mid-2017, there were at least 90 ongoing policy actions in U.S. states with the potential to affect the growth of rooftop generation, such as limits on net metering or new utility fees that make solar power less affordable. [...]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“It's not that utilities oppose solar power, per se—many are investing in large-scale solar projects, but many utilities are opposed to customers generating their own electricity and selling it to the grid. Think of [Arizona Public Service] like a grocer who doesn't want home gardeners selling vegetables in the town square—except this grocer enjoys a government-sanctioned monopoly.”
~Jeremy Deaton, 2017
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—The unique weirdness of the AG nomination:
How completely through the looking glass is this "administration?" The nomination now pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Attorney General serves to crystallize the issue by shattering all meaning behind two comfortable platitudes that used to function to satisfy all onlookers that all was right in Heaven.
First, there was the assurance from the nominee and his supporters that he'd respect the "rule of law." That used to be a fine phrase to toss out there without having to worry about it meaning too much one way or the other, until we learned that everything we once thought was a "law" was now a "hypothetical."
And now Senator Russ Feingold is testing the limits of the remaining currency of another shopworn but previously serviceable platitude -- the old throwaway explanation for a bad vote on a nominee:
He may be the best nominee we can get from this administration in this respect.
Senator, I'm afraid I'm going to have to challenge you on that. This "administration" has taken us well past the point where stock phrasing will be sufficient.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up news on the impending tax flop, and the latest PoliSci on what to make of those Republicans who rebuke Trump, but are still Republicans. The Russia part of Trump/Russia heats up. And then … there’s the Donna Brazile article.
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