Contrary to the fevered fantasy of leftist catastrophic anthropogenic global warming acolytes, the federal government’s shift to a realistic energy policy will result in lower overall payments for power by Louisianans if not also greater economic development.
The recent federal budget bill that made profound changes in taxing and spending policy included among other things the imminent end of subsidies for wind and solar sources, effective elimination of fuel standards for vehicles that will encourage fossil fuel usage, and the ability of individual states to leverage those standards higher. This of course has created a panic attack on the left, with a particularly useless Democrat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission pontificating that the discouragement of the renewable sources will doom consumers to higher rates, under the facile assumption that the lower costs utilities paid for renewable generation will go higher without taxpayers footing part of the bill and that markets don’t prevail.
Of course, in that view there’s no consideration of those very taxpayers that include Louisianans who as a result of the budget reconciliation will see both permanently lower taxes and a reallocation of spending that better matches the genuine priorities of the people. And the supposition of higher-priced retail prices differs from assessments of energy policy experts generally, who note historical data show a distinct positive correlation between electricity pricing and proportion of power generated by solar and wind sources. They also note the inherent dishonesty in having hidden in subsidies the extra amount that citizens pay for greater wind and solar usage rather than out in the open in the form of higher charged rates.
Especially hilarious in all of this is that the ideologues/CAGW faithful and grifting renewable power industry crowds keep insisting that wind and solar generation are cheaper than fossil fuels. That, of course, is a myth or, less charitably, a lie, but if we accepted the falsehood then why should these renewables receive any subsidies at all?
In fact, what will happen is the market will compensate. While current projects are exempted from the cutoff, in the near future there will be a ratcheting down of wind and solar projects, and especially in Louisiana where now official energy policy favors lower-cost and more-reliable energy sources meaning fossil fuels and new regulations have gone into effect that force larger-scale solar farms to pay more to make these unobtrusive. Louisiana providers part of regional transmission organizations still will have some upwards price pressure from a power pool drawn in part from states with renewable portfolio standards, but hopefully those states that stupidly have these will reconsider and in the light of higher prices forced by renewable sources will adjust these downward or even eliminate these.
More indirectly in Louisiana, the neutering of CAFE standards — already watered down by the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration — and the ability of certain CAGW-enthralled states that leverage higher mileage per gallon requirements across the universe of available vehicle for public purchase because they were allowed to have stricter standards — will encourage greater fossil fuel and combustion engine vehicle usage and discourage production of electric vehicles. That will boost fortunes in a state with so much fossil fuel production as demand for that increases.
Besides the obvious winning elements of what’s now drawing the appellation of the “One Big Beautiful Law,” subsidy ending and regulation redefinition bring benefits to Louisiana.
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