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posted by n1 on Tuesday April 29 2014, @05:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the renewable-energy-will-ruin-the-economy dept.

The NYT writes in an editorial that for the last few months, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy by pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.

The coal producers' motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation's electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy.

For example, the Arizona Public Service Company, the state's largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes by raising electric rates. The ad tried to link the requirement to President Obama. Another Koch ad likens the renewable-energy requirement to health care reform, the ultimate insult in that world. "Like Obamacare, it's another government mandate we can't afford," the narrator says. "That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it's deliberately misleading," concludes the editorial. "This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change."

 
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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29 2014, @11:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29 2014, @11:11AM (#37593)

    SoylentNews has done nothing besides post bunk conspiracy theory articles and offend half of its userbase with a convoluted "name change" voting system that many registered users did not receive (yes, I hit the checkbox and yes, I checked my SPAM folder). The Koch brothers, for example, are the designated left-wing scare tactic [washingtonpost.com] this political season. This is in spite of the fact that they contribute to Reason [reason.com] magazine, and have given money to gay rights movements, pot legalization, and ending the wars [mediaite.com]. They are more libertarian leaning than anything (not surprising since their father ran for the Libertarian party president in the 80's). The reality is, since 2006, the Democratic party has received more donations from the rich [ijreview.com] than the Republicans.

    I apologize to anyone outside the United States who has to skip through this drivel. SoylentNews has the potential to be so much better than the old site, but the long term outlook is trending closer towards InfoWars [infowars.com] than Ars Technica [www.arstechnica]. What's next, a Monsanto story?

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