WASHINGTON – The Institute for Energy Research (IER) today responded to President Obama’s budget proposal. The administration’s budget proposes $7.4 billion to fund green energy technologies, a permanent extension of the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), $4 billion to pressure states to meet the president’s costly power plant rules, and $500 million for the Green Climate Fund. Below is a statement from IER President Thomas Pyle:
“President Obama may call his proposal a ‘middle-class economics’ budget, but in reality it hurts all Americans including the middle class, and especially the poor.”
“This budget would increase government spending and raise energy costs on American families. For example, permanently extending the costly wind Production Tax Credit would line the pockets of multi-national corporations with taxpayer dollars for years to come. The PTC is not only an immense waste of taxpayer dollars that was recently rejected by a bipartisan majority in the Senate, but it would further raise electricity costs by contributing to the premature retirements of our country’s coal and nuclear power plants, many of which would remain viable if not for the deluge of Washington mandates.
“The president’s budget also launches yet another attack on coal-fired power plants, frittering away $4 billion to pressure states to cave on the EPA’s devastating carbon-dioxide regulations. This is nothing more than an attempt to bribe and coerce states into kowtowing to the president’s climate agenda.
“Finally, Americans should reject the president’s proposal to funnel taxpayer dollars into the Green Climate Fund. In reality, the Green Climate Fund is more like a Climate Guilt Fund for developed nations to make themselves feel better about denying affordable energy to those who lack it, resigning millions to lives of poverty and darkness.”
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