http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/20/solar-battle-koch-brothers-front-groups/
[links in on-line article]
Solar Industry Prepares for Battle Against Koch Brothers’ Front Groups
Ken Johnson, Solar Energy Industries Association
February 20, 2015 8:03 am
Mark Twain said it best, there are “lies, damned lies and statistics.”
It’s hard to tell which is which after closely reviewing the latest
hatchet job on solar energy by the Koch brothers’ front group, The
Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA).
Aside from spelling solar correctly, much of the report, Filling the
Solar Sinkhole, is untrue or misleading—including its basic assertion
that the U.S. solar industry receives $39 billion in annual subsidies.
Seriously? How can that be? How can an industry with a U.S. market value
of $15 billion receive $39 billion in annual subsidies? The answer: it
doesn’t. This is fuzzy math, and dirty tricks, at their very worst. But
that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The purpose of this report isn’t to
inform or educate. The purpose is to incite activists and generate
scandalous headlines, when, in fact, no scandal exists.
According to PV-Tech’s John Parnell, who did a thoughtful analysis, “The
report doesn’t make it clear how it arrived at the $39 billion figure.
Of the 26 references cited in the report, 16 of them are from
organizations that were either founded by the Koch brothers, or have
received funding from them.”
Enough is enough. If clean energy critics want a bare knuckle brawl,
then they’re going to get one. This type of guerrilla warfare simply
isn’t going to work. Americans overwhelmingly support clean, renewable
solar energy—and that scares the hell out of the Koch brothers and their
lackeys. Here’s the dirty little truth: few industries benefit more from
the U.S. tax code than carbon-rich big oil. By their own estimates, oil
and gas tax breaks amount to a staggering $100 billion over 10 years. So
how do the Koch brothers divert attention away from this? They prod
conservative groups, many of which they fund directly or indirectly, to
attack clean energy. If it served their purposes, they would portray
Snow White as an adulteress, a deadbeat and a crack queen.
Solar energy is an American success story—not a fairy tale. Since first
being enacted in 2006 under a Republican administration, the solar
Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has been a tremendous boon to both the U.S.
economy and our environment, changing America for the better and helping
to secure our nation’s energy future. Today, the solar industry employs
nearly 175,000 U.S. workers, pumps $15 billion a year into our economy
and offsets more than 20 million metric tons of damaging carbon
emissions into the air, which is the equivalent of removing 4 million
cars off U.S. highways and roads. In the past four years, employment in
the solar industry has increased by more than 85 percent—and last year
alone, we created one out of every 78 new jobs in America.
But the news keeps getting better. We now have an estimated 20 gigawatts
(GW) of installed solar energy capacity nationwide, which is enough to
power more than 4 million U.S. homes—or every single home in a state the
size of Massachusetts or New Jersey—with another 20 GW in the pipeline
for 2015-16. This remarkable progress is due, in large part, to smart,
effective public policies like the ITC.
If the Koch brothers and their minions want to have a discussion about
the solar ITC, then let’s have one at the same time about intangible
drilling costs and the oil depletion allowance. And while we’re at it,
let’s take a few questions on refinery explosions, oil spills and deadly
train derailments. Yep. We’ll have that debate with them any day of the
week.
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