Wingnuts Target NJ Wind and Solar for Elimination

Christie Followed Koch Bro’s Orders on RGGI – Will Wind and Solar Be Next?

Tom Johnson over at NJ Spotlight today reports that the Koch Brothers funded Americans For Prosperity (AFP) have targeted so called subsidies to off shore wind projects along the NJ coast.

Importantly, they are using the same lies and talking points Governor Christie and NJ business lobbyists have used. 

So this essentially must be considered a coordinated political issue campaign.

These are the same sham tactics used to back Christie’s decision to leave RGGI.

Specifically, AFP is praising free markets, criticizing the high costs of so called subsidies to renewable power, and making the same baseless claims as the Governor about the allegedly high cost of power as a significant factor in NJ’s poor economy.

No credible academic or professional economist attributes high energy costs as a cause of the current deep economic recession, which is the result of Wall Street’s speculative greed, enabled by lax regulatory oversight and deregulation.

As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put it in opposing Obama’s nomination of Gensler to be head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the position once held by Born: “Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history.” This bailout was engineered in cooperation with the Bush administration by Timothy Geithner, then head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, who was rewarded for his catering to Wall Street avarice by being named Obama’s treasury secretary.

Therefore, the Governor’s policy is founded on misinformation and thus doomed to failure.

Tom Johnson reports:

Conservative Group Wants to Shut Down NJ’s Offshore Wind Program -  Americans for Prosperity says state subsidies for offshore wind will drive up power prices and squelch economic development

A conservative group that spearheaded efforts to lobby the Christie administration to pull out of a regional initiative to curb greenhouse gas emissions is now trying to undercut New Jersey’s efforts to develop offshore wind farms.

Americans for Prosperity retained the Beacon Hill Institute to do a cost-benefit analysis of the state’s plans to develop up to 1,100 megawatts of wind capacity off the coast of southern New Jersey. The study concluded that “the rush to offshore wind power will produce net economic costs, raise electricity prices, and dampen economic activity.”

It is common knowledge that AFP is funded by the energy industry giant right wing Koch brothers.

The Beacon Hill Institute is far less known, but a quick Google finds that they are global warming deniers (w/ties to the Coors family and the standard stable of right wing think tanks).

Governor Christie already has announced his plans to rollback the renewble energy goals of the Energy Master Plan, eliminate major sources of renewable energy funding via the Societal Benefits Charge, and otherwise slash regulations and programs in order to promote more new in state fossil power generation.

This expanding disaster must be stopped by aggressive and organized citizen protest and Democrats in the Legislature.