Every election season, more and more money is poured into campaigns. But there is a surprising new twist this year - fossil fuel interests are actually spending money to directly attack clean energy like wind and solar, as we reveal in a new report we are releasing today, "Clean Energy Under Seige" (PDF).
Over the past decade, renewable energy's strong growth and success has made it a target for unprecedented new attacks from oil, coal, and gas interests. The report reveals how the fossil fuel industry is using tactics such as financial contributions to political campaigns, faux "think tanks," phony intellectuals, and fake grassroots "astroturf" groups to shift public opinion and discredit renewable energy. This is, of course, on top of the millions fossil fuel companies have been spending for decades to land loopholes and weak standards that give dirty energy an unfair advantage, while regular Americans bear the burden of polluted air and water.
Here are just a few of the ways that fossil fuel interests are launching new attacks on clean energy:
With renewable energy seeing an 83 percent approval rating among all Americans - including 63 percent support from Republicans and 84 percent support from Independents - it seems counterintuitive that many politicians still oppose the development of clean energy.
But that's where the industry's hundreds of millions of dollars come in. They continue wanting to put profits over public health and are threatened by the success of clean energy.
Wind energy has grown steadily in the past decade, doubling in size since 2009. In 2011, it accounted for roughly three percent of U.S. electricity production. During the first months of 2012, it topped four percent. Already, Iowa and South Dakota generate 20 percent of their electricity from wind power, and the wind industry is on track to produce 20 percent of America's electricity by 2030.
A boom in the production of photovoltaic solar cells has not only cut the price of solar panels in half, but has also helped double solar energy's contribution to America's power supply
Now dirty industry has the Production Tax Credit for wind energy in its sights - and polluters don't care that letting the credit expire means major job losses. The wind energy Production Tax Credit helps support the more than 75,000 jobs in the wind industry, but if the tax credit is not renewed before the end of this year, as many as half those jobs could be lost.
This misinformation and dirty money must stop. As we face weather extremes such as drought and excessive heat, climate disruption is already on our doorstep. Plus, clean energy has become one of the few sectors that is actually reviving our struggling economy, and we need the growth of clean energy to continue. It's time to invest in and support clean energy to protect this planet and create a prosperous future for our children and grandchildren.
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Solar and wind are the future! Do everything you can to support great jobs and clean air.
"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."
You talk about dirty money in politics fighting you, and frankly I'm cheering them on! There are a lot more of me out there than you and we are seeing you rob every one for your cause. Well it must stop and it will stop. There are millions of people being hurt economically and the tables are turning!
The XL pipeline will be built, there is enough natural gas and shale oil to make this country self sufficient and wind and solar are not going to be economical for at least another 100 years. I propose we stop the clean energy insanity and use that money to help feed people! There are billions of people starving and the money we waste on green energy subsidies will go a long way to help feed them and teach them more modern farming methods. That will have an impact for good within months of redirecting the money.
So 3 cheers for the organizations lobbying against you. They will win, it is just a matter of time.
I spent a week in Texas in June due a death in my husbands family. That time was spent between the hill country north down to the city of Corpus Christi, where Koch Industries spent decades of covering up the thousands of tons of benzene they were knwoingly pumping into everyone's air. It took 3 days, without antibiotics, for my lymph nodes to return to their normal size and state.
Your comments are solely based on profit and lots of it, in addition to nothing else. (I love your feigned attempt at concern over feeding people! Gave me a real chuckle.)
By the way, you won't win. Like the aged Koch brothers and any and all like their ilk, they are short lived now that they are in their 70's. The younger generation is already demonstrating their ability to consider how short sighted the DOW, Chevron and Monsanto chemicals are, just as thousands of Indian farmers that drank Round-Up due to their crop failures since it's introduction.
Consideration to more powerful minds like the late Ray Anderson of FLOR and David Suzuki could provide some beginning tutelage.
Where would you be without subsidies and mandates? Why do you think you have the right to spend my hard earned tax dollars on this stuff? Today wind and solar have significantly more real costs than either coal or natural gas. The Feds subsidies these wind and solar farms, and everyone who uses electricity from them pays more for it! I live in Austin, Texas and it costs AE about 5-6 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh) to generate electricity for the city. It costs about twice that for wind and solar with the subsidies and because you can't be sure winds will be available and sun doesn't shine at night, these sources still need 100% back up power!
Then Austin Energy spent $2.4b building a biomass plant. This boondoggle will generate electricity for over 20 cents / kwh.
This is a very significant tax to everyone who uses energy in Austin and will suck up money that could have been used for something much more productive. We are talking hundreds of millions here and the mandate to get to 30% renewable energy will add greatly to everone's electric bill.
Continued in next post...
Good luck with that Texas air.
The air here is just fine, thank you.
It's your last chance.
the fossil fuel industry is using tactics such as financial contributions to political campaigns, faux "think tanks," phony intellectuals, and fake grassroots "astroturf" groups to shift public opinion and discredit renewable energy. This is, of course, on top of the millions fossil fuel companies have been spending for decades to land loopholes and weak standards that give dirty energy an unfair advantage, while regular Americans bear the burden of polluted air and water.ig Oil tycoons David and Charles Koch gave at least $85 million to dozens of right-wing "think tanks" and advocacy groups over the past decade and a half rganizations like the Manhattan Institute and the Heartland Institute that defend oil subsidies while attacking renewable energy have received upwards of $600,000 each since 1998 from the oil company Exxon. •Fossil fuel interests are working through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to repeal state clean energy mandates, called Renewable Portfolio Standards.
Both sides may actually believe the nonsense they are selling. But truth is the first to go in any of these campaigns, as in any war. Truth is too complex and messy and requires a basic scientific knowledge level in order to assess the validity of those who would twist "science" to support their political/social agenda. Complexity is not good for PR campaigns, including the Sierra Clubs campaigns.