AUSTIN – Today, a group of more than 20 leading policy experts from around the country submitted a letter to Congress expressing concerns about including tax incentives for renewable energy in the three stimulus packages intended to help in the recovery period following the COVID-19 crisis.
Initiated by the Texas Public Policy Foundation through its Life:Powered project, the letter includes the following highlights:
“Your constituents expect decisive action to stop the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate financial hardship. Tolerating such blatant pork barrel spending on programs that will provide no relief from the economic strain of the coronavirus is an affront to their trust and their hard-earned tax dollars.
“In fact, expanding renewable energy subsidies will harm our economy by favoring intermittent, expensive energy that weakens our electric grid, creates few jobs, and needlessly raises the cost of electricity – which, ironically, actually harms public health in the long run as struggling families are forced to choose between putting food on the table, refilling life-saving prescriptions, and paying utility bills.
“This is no time for political games. Climate change is not an immediate threat to humanity. Climate-related deaths have declined 98.9% in the last century, and humanity is growing more and more resilient thanks to the availability of affordable, reliable energy. On behalf of all Americans, we urge you to oppose any stimulus proposals that carve out special treatment for or bail out any energy companies and focus instead on stopping COVID-19.”
To read the letter in full, please visit:
https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus-Stimulus-Letter.pdf