From: The New York Times
At
long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state
government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax
on something the country needs: solar energy panels.
For
the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been
spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have
been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that
allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to
electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a
surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing
solar panels on houses less attractive.
Oklahoma lawmakers recently approved such a surcharge at the behest of the American Legislative Exchange Council,
the conservative group that often dictates bills to Republican
statehouses and receives financing from the utility industry and
fossil-fuel producers, including the Kochs. As The Los Angeles Times reported recently,
the Kochs and ALEC have made similar efforts in other states, though
they were beaten back by solar advocates in Kansas and the surtax was
reduced to $5 a month in Arizona. MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment