Senate Democrats Jam Through Green New Deal Spendathon

August 8, 2022

Over the weekend, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats voted to dump hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into green energy. We’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well.

Stephen Moore and Thomas Philipson write in the Wall Street Journal: “Now consider the green-energy industry. Over the past 40 years more than $200 billion of taxpayer dollars have poured into green energy—mostly subsidies for wind and solar power through direct payments, loan guarantees and renewable energy mandates. The feds have been awful at picking winners—think Solyndra—and this bill would spend another $380 billion.”

Beyond the obvious boondoggles of the past, taxpayers have received very little for their massive investments, and there is no reason to double down on them.

Moore and Philipson continue: “What have we received in return for all this money? Wind and solar account for less than 7% of America’s total energy production—and it’s an expensive 7% for the taxpayer. A University of Texas at Austin study found that subsidies per megawatt-hour of electricity amount to roughly 50 cents for coal, $1 to $2 for oil and natural gas, $15 to $57 for wind and $43 to $320 for solar.”

“History tells us that purely partisan bills jammed through in the dead of the night rarely work out as advertised,” said Daniel Turner, Founder and Executive Director of Power The Future. “While every family will have to pay more because of this bill, only the rich and the politically connected will benefit. The Biden Administration hasn’t witnessed the hardships their policies have caused the American people, and they have responded with pleas to Saudi Arabia and calls for struggling Americans to buy $60,000 EVs. It’s not surprising that their latest action doubles down on stupid and further punishes the American people with higher taxes and billions for their corporate donors.”

Instead of unleashing the abundant and affordable fossil energy resources America has available, Senate Democrats have unleashed a reckless spending spree that has failed before. Instead of being committed to helping Americans keep more green in their pockets, they have been committed to the Green New Deal.