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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023

Texas Lawmakers Have a New Scheme to Punish Renewables and Prop Up Fossil Fuels

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Link: Texas Lawmakers Have a New Scheme to Punish Renewables and Prop Up Fossil Fuels
Stephan:  

You saw the report I ran in yesterday's SR on the IPCC's urgent warning that humanity has reached the point where we take climate change seriously or life is going to change dramatically and negatively, and that millions are going to die. Contrast that with this:  According to a national 2021 Yahoo News/YouGov poll more than two-thirds of Republicans (67 percent) continue to insist that climate change is “not an emergency.”   And this report showing the Republicans in Texas under MAGAt governor Greg Abbott are doing what he and the Republican-controlled legislature can do to impede the development of renewal non-carbon energy, and to promote the continued dependence on fossil fuels. Then remember that these Republicans are in office because the people of Texas voted them there. It is obvious that we in the United States are nowhere near where we need to be mentally or emotionally to deal with what climate change is doing to alter our society.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick waves to a crowd at a Trump rally. Credit: Nick Wagner /AP

Texas Republicans are at it again. Last week, Republican politicians in the state legislature introduced a package of bills intended to punish renewable energy and boost fossil fuels, despite the fact that Texas is currently one of the nation’s top generators of renewable power.

On Thursday, Texas state senators Charles Schwertner and Phil King introduced nine bills that they said would help solve issues with Texas’s beleaguered power grid. According to the Dallas Morning News, the bills include one that would create up to 10,000 megawatts of natural gas-fueled generation; one to smooth out what Schwertner said were pro-wind and solar “market distortions” that federal tax breaks create; one to get rid of any remaining state tax credits for renewables; and one that would limit new renewable energy facilities being built based on how much natural gas facilities are also being built, in an attempt to keep natural gas competitive.

The bills are an echo of some of the concepts raised in bills introduced two […]

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2 Comments

  1. Rev. Dean on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 8:06 am

    Texans need a better education system. They must teach people to have closed minds, instead of having intuitive minds which can understand the facts about reality, which stare
    them right in their eyes, but do not reach their brains.

  2. S B on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 8:48 am

    What the duck