Tilting at the Wrong Windmills

For want of about $18 billion, Congress is putting the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in the U.S. on hold. That’s the estimated cost to the U.S. Treasury over ten years to expand and extend tax credits for consumers, home owners, and businesses to improve energy efficiency and invest in renewable energy production. Many more billions in new private investments and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs are on hold as a consequence - at a time when the economy and the Earth could surely benefit from them.

Who would pay for this investment in a sustainable energy future? “Not I,” say the biggest oil companies who took in a record $123 billion in profits last year as the price of oil passed $100 per barrel. The “Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act” (HR 5351), passed by the House in February, would end certain tax preferences for the biggest oil companies. It would raise their taxes by about $18 billion over the next ten years. But oil state senators and President Bush refuse to let that pass.

Perhaps the Pentagon could spare some change? This is less than the Pentagon plans to spend building a few new attack submarines over the next five years ($19 billion). It is also only a fraction of the amount that the Bush administration says it will need to continue to wage the wars and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan this year. (It could go as high as $189 billion) . Overall, the Bush administration proposes to spend more than $742 billion on the military in FY09. $18 billion WOULD be small change compared to that. But yet, Congress is likely to give the president everything he wants for the military - while wringing its hands over how to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy tax incentives.

Along which path does our security lie as a nation and world? Is it in rapidly shifting our economy toward more windmills, solar panels, geothermal energy, energy efficiency, good-paying jobs, and a stable, life-sustaining climate? Or in more subs in the seas against non-existent adversaries and more boots on the ground in conflicts that cannot be won by military means?

Which windmills will Congress choose? Will it continue the tilt toward the mistaken, perilous delusions of the past or will it tilt toward the windmills of a sustainable energy future?