Easy Being Green: Iberdrola

Part of Sen. Jim DeMint's "Easy Being Green" video series looking at stimulus spending on President Obama's favored green energy projects.

TRANSCRIPT:

President has recently called on Congress to pass yet another stimulus bill. Even though the last stimulus added a trillion dollars to our debt and did nothing to slow increasing unemployment, the President's hoping you've forgotten the lessons of the last stimulus and will buy in to another round of economic snake-oil.

Let's take a few minutes to look at one of the projects that the last trillion dollar stimulus bought us.

In 2010 as part of the failed stimulus, the administration created the Treasury Department's 1603 Renewable Energy Grant Program.

This $7 billion program provided $170 million in federal tax dollars to a Spanish company to build a wind farm in Illinois.
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/100-Recovery-Act-Projects-Changin­g-America-Report.pdf)

Iberdrola -- the Spanish company building the wind farm -- is investing heavily in the United States, not because renewable energy is economically competitive here, but because the subsidy gravy train still runs freely. They said as much in news reports: http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/22420

And it's not as if Iberdrola can't afford to spend the money itself, in fact, it's one of the largest energy companies in the world.

Behind their pretty windmills there are serious consequences. We know exactly what happens -- excessive government spending, and mountains of debt, and temporary jobs that evaporate.

We know this not because of some speculative guesswork, but because of an analysis by Spanish economists of their nation's misadventure in renewable subsidies.
(http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf)

This analysis of Spain's experiment draws some tragic conclusions.

First, for each green job created by green energy spending in Spain, 2.2 regular jobs were destroyed.

Secondly, forcing extremely expensive energy into the Spanish market increased the price of energy for every business and individual, killing jobs and strangling family budgets.

Finally, the Spanish taxpayer was saddled with the massive long term debt necessary to finance these subsidies... in a country already facing a fiscal crisis

We can't let America go down the same road. We need to say no to the President's stimulus proposal and instead pursue pro-growth policies that reduce spending, lower taxes, and reduce the regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs. Doing these things will liberate our innovators to reinvigorate the economy and create sustainable jobs.

Music from Incompetech.com, used under Creative Commons.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• green
• jobs
• obama
• iberdrola

[httm241]

@TFStacy it because the fucking oil companies constantly block it

[TFStacy]

It's the right conclusion, but the message is weak. The thing is that wind and solar don't work well at all, and can never make a substantial difference. Correction - they can never make a substantial POSITIVE difference to our electrical energy needs or the environment. Wind is 7X the cost of CCGT per unit of coal emissions avoided, while locking us into at least 3/4 as much natural gas as would be needed using gas alone. Wind cannot be backed up by a replica of itself. Think about that.

[eymsirius]

I watched ''Easy Being Green". You display a cave man mentality, opting for non-renewable energy sources instead of planning for the future. But your goal is just power for the sake of power anyway. You have no idea of what it takes to help entrepreneurs because you have no interest in helping entrepreneurs! Small business is tired of your demagoguery! PASS the American Jobs Act, then take another reading of the jobs situation and go from THERE. Right now, you're doing nothing!!

[Aeschylus]

Bad for: America, Spain.

Good for: companies with political connections, ideologues not grounded in reality.

[millingsr]

Jim, I hope you and fellow senators can stop this drunken sailor and his cronies!

[adburger]

Facts and common sense..... this is painful for the administration.