The best public leadership empowers private leadership, writes DC_Hartman. Congress should make competitive power generation and consumer choice the law of the land.
In this Oct. 6, 2015 photo, a miner walks out of the Sewell"R" coal mine Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015, in Yukon, W.Va. he recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act has liberals celebrating the largest public clean energy and climate investment in U.S. history.Despite its title, independent assessments suggest that the act will have negligible effects on inflation. Its climate gifts are also oversold at an unfair price for taxpayers.
The climate movement should not take a victory lap. Claims that the law will result in a 10% to 15% reduction in domestic emissions by 2030 do not reflect the regulatory realities of infrastructure development. Furthermore, emissions cuts would carry a taxpayer. With a $370 billion price tag, it would optimistically reduce 1% of global emissions so expensively that most other countries dare not replicate the policy.
Clean energy’s biggest hurdle is a regulatory blockade. Before the Inflation Reduction Act, more clean energy was trying to connect to the grid than the entire capacity of the existing fossil fuel fleet. Yet the application process to connect to the grid takes four years in parts of the country, and securing
typically takes another four years. Clean energy developers acknowledge that regulatory conditions dictate the pace of the energy transition.Expanding and modernizing competitive markets holds greater climate promise than massive public spending. It also aligns with free market principles, which can foment durable, bipartisan climate policy and stoke global envy by reducing emissions and spurring economic growth.
Half a century ago, Congress gave birth to the competitive power industry to tame energy costs amid geopolitical conditions similar to today. Where competitive markets exist, consumers benefit and clean energy prospers. Where regulation stomps out competition by legalizing monopoly utilities, clean energy remains suppressed, and customers are forced to pay higher bills.
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