But James M. Taylor believes states should ditch them, contending that consumers
end up paying higher utility bills while receiving no net environmental benefits
at the end of the day.
“I never use the term ‘renewable portfolio standards,’ ” Taylor said at a recent
speech sponsored by the New Mexico-based free-market organization, the Rio
Grande Foundation. “Standards are something you aspire to reach, you’re not
forced to obey. The correct term is ‘renewable portfolio mandates.’ ”
Taylor is the senior fellow for Environment and Energy Policy at the Heartland
Institute, a think tank whose website says is “devoted to discovering,
developing, and promoting free-market solutions to social and economic
problems.”
Taylor also writes a regular column at Forbes.com, where he takes on carbon
taxes, chides climate activists and cites studies that lead him to say a warming
planet is actually a good thing.
“We had more plagues, we had more famines, more crop failures, we had more human
misery during the Little Ice Age when temperatures were colder,” Taylor told
Watchdog.org after his speech.
“People fear change. People also fear humans having some impact on the
environment and while we should certainly be cognizant of that and scrutinize
it, we shouldn’t just leap to the conclusion without looking at the evidence
that it therefore must be bad. Sometimes we have benefits.”
Comments like that make Taylor persona non grata among environmental
organizations, who accuse Taylor and the Heartland Institute of being
mouthpieces for the fossil fuel industry.
“Contrary to claims made by Taylor and others at Heartland … the overwhelming
majority of experts agree that climate is changing rapidly, that humans are the
dominant drivers of the changes, and that model projections indicate that the
changes will be highly disruptive if they’re not planned for,” said a 2013
column in Climate Progress.
“If you think that the Heartland Institute would be chasing dollars, then we’d
be on the other side of the debate,” Taylor said. “When you look at the budgets
for the (major national environmental groups), you’re talking about budgets that
are 10 times what we have. If we’re out there chasing dollars, we’d be chasing
their dollars where the big money is.”
Among Taylor’s favorite topics is challenging the renewable standards adopted by
states ranging on the political spectrum from deep blue California (which calls
for 33 percent of its electric power to come from renewable sources by 2020) to
deep red Utah (20 percent by 2025).
Photo from the Heartland Institute website
Photo from the Heartland Institute website
James M. Taylor, Heartland Institute
“Renewable power mandates are a bad idea because they impose upon consumers far
more expensive energy, electricity in particular, than would otherwise be the
case,” Taylor said.
But Sanders Moore, executive director of Environment New Mexico, says renewable
requirements are effective.
“I do think it’s a win-win situation for states,” Moore told Watchdog.org. “When
you talk to a financial adviser, they talk to you about diversifying your
economic portfolio. It’s a good thing with energy as well.”
Established in 2006, New Mexico’s renewable standards require 20 percent of the
state’s electricity be generated by renewable sources by 2020.
“Having more renewable sources I think can help buffer against downswings in
conventional energy and it’s also better for our public health,” Moore said.
At his Albuquerque presentation, Taylor cited data asserting that since New
Mexico established renewable standards, electricity prices in the state have
gone up 32 percent — more than twice the national average.
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But Moore says the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission put in a
price threshold to ensure that no more than 3 percent of a price
increase can be related to the state’s renewable energy
requirements.
In a 2014 post on Forbes.com, Taylor said Colorado electricity
prices rose 20 percent faster than the national average and went up
twice the rate of the national average since the state toughened its
renewable standards in 2007.
“The problem is exacerbated by the fact that there aren’t any of the
environmental benefits in net that (state renewable standards)
promise,” Taylor said.
“There might be some reductions in certain emissions, but when you
look at all the environmental factors, like land usage, and when you
look at species that are being forced off of lands or killed by wind
turbines, etc., there are many people, myself included, who think
that the environment is better off with conventional power than wind
and solar.”
But what about the externalities — the costs that may be unseen but
should be factored — that come from using fossil fuels?
“Let’s assume for the sake of argument that carbon dioxide emission,
sulfur dioxide, etc., have these negative externalities,” Taylor
said.
“Then, you put a price on that and hopefully you do it honestly. But
you also have to put a price on the 1.4 million birds and bats that
are killed every year, including many protected and endangered
species. You have to put a price on developing mountain top ridges
and coastal shorelines. You have to put a price on the tremendous
amount of water that’s required for solar-thermal production.”
Photo from Environment New Mexico website
Photo from Environment New Mexico website
Sanders Moore, executive director of Environment New Mexico
But Moore points to a study done by PNM, New Mexico’s largest
utility, that says renewable energy provided by the utility will
save 382 million gallons of water by 2016.
“Once a solar panel and a wind turbine is made and installed,
neither one requires any water consumption,” Moore said in a
telephone interview. “So based on that, we’re seeing a huge net
benefit in water savings.”
At his presentation, Taylor pointed to data from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration that over the next 30 years new solar
power will cost about five times more than conventional energy
sources.
However, the solar industry disputed the data collection that
produced the number and points to reports showing the price of solar
and wind energy has come down sharply in recent years.
“Well, certainly five times more expensive is not as horrible as 10
times more expensive, but it’s still pretty horrible,” Taylor said.
Moore said renewable requirements can help protect energy states
like New Mexico from the recent steep fall in global oil prices.
“If the solar industry is growing and is able to provide a more
stable source of jobs, then I think that will help,” Moore said.
“If the day comes when (renewable energy is) cost competitive, I’ll
cheer it on and I think I won’t even need to cheer it on because
people will choose to buy them,” Taylor said. “If they really have
any heft to their economic arguments then they don’t need any
government intervention and people like me will be more than happy
to buy their products.”
“Renewable energy is good not just for New Mexico, but for the
United States because renewable energy is a pollution-free energy
source that helps to clean up our air,” Moore said.
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