Dirty Energy Fighting Dirty to Kill Solar in Kentucky
Jim Gooch has been the stupidest and most corrupt member of a stupid and corrupt General Assembly for decades. His name on legislation guarantees the bill will severely harm the poorest and most defenseless Kentuckians. Compared to the Gooch, Jim Inhofe is a tree-hugger.
Of course Gooch is getting rich by doing utilities' dirty work to kill renewable energy.
Tom Eblen at the Herald:
The anti-solar energy bill that was narrowly passed by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate illustrates two weaknesses in Kentucky’s civic character: We try to cling to the past, and we tolerate dirty politics.
House Bill 227 was written by electric utilities to protect their monopolies by discouraging Kentuckians from installing solar panels on their homes.
Under current law, homeowners with solar panels get full credit for excess power they feed into the utility grid on sunny days for when they need to draw it out at night or on cloudy days. This bill would significantly cut that credit, while making them pay full price for power they draw out.
SNIP
Solar panel installers — mostly small businesses scattered around the state — say drastically cutting the so-called net metering rate would all but put them out of business, costing Kentucky hundreds of jobs. Fewer homeowners will install solar panels if low credit rates make it harder for them to recoup their investment.
What this bill is really about is protecting the utilities’ traditional business model and protecting their monopolies on generating electricity. It’s as if carriage makers a century ago had tried to ban automobiles from the road, claiming they were unfair to horses.
SNIP
he story of how this bill even made it to the House floor is a case study in dirty politics.
It was the work of Rep. Jim Gooch of Providence, a Democrat-turned-Republican and longtime chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Gooch, the coal industry’s best friend in Frankfort, is most famous for a 2007 legislative hearing he organized on the science of climate change that included no scientists, only climate-change deniers.
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