Let’s Clear One Thing Up After the Midterms.

(If you have questions and don’t want to go through the comments for some reason, you can reach me at theoldgrouch@grouchhfarmer.com)

Solar and Politics

I don’t delve into politics in this blog and I’m not going to start now. But I do need to clear some things up regarding solar energy now that the midterms are over and the democrats seem to have won control of both the House and the Senate. There is a lot of utter drivel being spouted in the solar community forums and, unfortunately, even by the newly elected members of Congress. And when I say drivel, I mean exactly that.

People are claiming that the tariffs on solar equipment are going to be going away. There are claims that the federal tax credit or something like it is going to come back. Some claim that federal and state regulations that seem to be designed specifically to make adopting alternative forms of energy as difficult as possible are going to go away.

I hate throw cold water on everyone, but someone needs to load up a big bucket of water and ice and dump it on a few people out there because all of that is total bullshit.

Do you want to know what is really going to happen? I’ll tell you.

Absolutely nothing.

People keep forgetting how this government actually works. Congress has the authority to make and change laws, yes, but it cannot act by itself. Any legislation it passes has to be signed by the president before it actually becomes law. Congress can pass all of the legislation it likes to try to change the situation. But they cannot change the fact that the president can and will veto any legislation that he doesn’t like, and the Congress doesn’t have the necessary votes to overturn his veto.

So Congress can spout off all it likes. It can have all of the committee hearings it likes. It can investigate whatever or whoever it likes. But it’s all a dog and pony show. They put on a good performance for their voters back home, make it look like they’re doing something really, really important, but ultimately it’s all just meaningless PR stunts that accomplish absolutely nothing unless they pass actual real legislation and put together enough votes to override a veto.

So there aren’t going to be any new tax breaks for renewable energy projects. There isn’t going to be any new grant money made available. The personal income tax credit for installing energy efficient equipment and renewable energy equipment is not going to be coming back. Tax breaks for buying EVs aren’t going to be coming back. None of it.

Nor are the tariffs going to be magically going away somehow. Under Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution only the Congress has the authority to levy tariffs. But because the US Congress has proven itself over and over again to be the largest collection of self serving spineless cowards in the entire country unable to react quickly enough to changing world conditions, it has passed legislation yielding some of its authority to the executive branch of the government, i.e. the president. And unless Congress is willing to claw back that authority, and can muster enough votes to override the inevitable presidential veto, nothing is going to change.

And in any case, many, perhaps even most of the bottlenecks with the development of renewable energy projects are from state and local governments and are not under the control of the feds in the first place. Zoning laws, building codes, site restrictions, etc. where many of the problems we have to deal with originate, are under state and local control. And if your state legislature is anything at all like ours here, most of your legislators and quite possibly the governor’s office itself, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the utility monopolies no matter which party they belong to.

So all that chatter about how things are going to abruptly change overnight once the new members of Congress are sworn in? Yeah, forget it. Ain’t gonna happen.