Despite impressive green economic growth during this country’s job-challenged recovery, particularly in the wind energy sector, the conservative right is systematically seeking to reverse this trend by repealing state-mandated renewable energy targets, even if many of the states that stand to lose jobs and economic opportunity lean red.

AlterNet Right-wing groups funded by the fossil-fuel industry and the billionaire Koch brothers are rolling out a nationwide assault to repeal state Renewable Electricity Standards (RES), a key component, along with such federal tax incentives as the wind production tax credit (PTC), in driving renewable energy growth in the United States.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have a state-mandated RES (also known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard). Traditionally, the renewable electricity standard has received bipartisan support. Efforts in recent years to repeal or weaken state renewable standards have largely failed.

But a November 2012 Washington Post investigation revealed that the fossil-fuel and Koch-funded American Legislative Council (ALEC) and the climate-denying Heartland Institute are making this a nationwide priority in 2013.

The push to repeal these renewable standards is already evident in state legislatures in North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio.

Still, Jeff Deyette, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called this […]

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