Today, the Obama administration is rolling out new solar power executive actions. The National Journal reports that the White House is working with the private sector “to help underserved communities power their homes with solar energy while expanding opportunities for Americans to get jobs in the solar industry.” The initiative is expected to help boost the solar industry and reduce consumer energy costs — the exact thing Koch Industries doesn’t want to happen.
The Kochs’ record for pushing for more regulation for solar power reveals their greedy motivations. Every time the brothers tout their “free market” values, they’re really just pushing their own profit-driven agenda. Using the Koch-financed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Koch’s political long arm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the billionaires have advocated for legislation across the country that put up road blocks for the market’s expansion.
Legislation to make net metering illegal or more costly has been introduced in nearly two dozen state houses since 2013. Some of the proposals were virtual copies of model legislation drafted two years ago by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a nonprofit organization with financial ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
AFP and ALEC have also campaigned together to repeal renewable energy standards in an effort to push back solar energy, but their proposals were largely rejected, and they’ve been met with resistance in their own party. They face tough opposition from the Tea Party, including one of the parties earliest organizers, Debbie Dooley.
The Huffington Post reports:
Debbie Dooley, a Georgia-based tea party leader and founder of Conservatives For Energy Freedom, accused the AFP of “hypocrisy” on the issue of solar power.
“AFP is supposed to espouse free-market principles, but they’re trying to prevent Floridians from engaging in commerce in a free-market manner,” Dooley told The Huffington Post. “They are resorting to outright lies.”
Dooley accused the group of kowtowing to its corporate benefactors rather than the will of the people, as the Koch brothers made much of their money off fossil fuels. “You don’t throw your principles out the window to benefit your corporate benefactors,” she said.
The Kochs’ history with solar power shows how deep their hypocrisy runs. The White House’s latest actions are sure to spur a renewed effort by the brothers — maybe this time they’ll go with a Mr. Burns-style shade in hopes of blocking out the sun altogether.