GE Hates US Energy Policy Too

December 5th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

I am so angry this weekend that it is hard to write about clean energy news. US energy policy is held hostage once again by a GOP refusal to allow a fair up or down vote in the Senate by the majority on the expiring Bush tax cuts bill, that almost seems like domestic terrorism.

The GOP is holding a gun at our head so millionaires and billionaires can get tax cuts. Our clean energy policy that we had hidden in the tax bill was collateral damage. This is traumatic.

We can’t actually come right out and have a grownup discussion with these people and pass clean energy and climate policy like other countries. We have to hide it. That’s the only way to pass any progressive policy.

Section 1603 cash grants for solar projects, tucked inside the tax bill, was killed, along with much, much, much more.

Turns out that the CEO of GE is just as mad, and he puts it better than me.

“You actually have to have an energy policy,” Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE told Businessweek. “It’s stupid what we have today.”

By contrast with the US, Immelt said, China has public policy. Along with innovation funding, supply chains and demand, “China is green, green, green, green — four greens.”

Here’s the rest from Richard Matthews The Green Market in Canada:

China and other industrialized counties are pulling ahead of the US in the race to lead in clean energy because policy makers in Washington have been caught up in debates on issues such as the effects of climate change, Immelt said.

“The rest of the world is moving 10 times faster than we are, and that’s going to mean someday fewer jobs, it’s going to mean less energy security, it’s going to mean lots of other things other than just climate change,” he said.

Immelt, who also called for a national standard requiring the use of renewable energy, said GE won’t give up on pushing to change US energy policy.

Immelt indicated that the US needs to establish a “long-term price signal” on carbon emissions, in order for companies to provide “appropriate funding for innovation.” Such moves would create jobs rather than shift them overseas, Immelt said.

What he said.

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

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Tags: GE, Jeffrey Immelt

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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Roger Lauricella

Susan:

So pissed that you state, “Our clean energy policy that we had hidden in the tax bill was collateral damage. This is traumatic.” and then you say ,”We can’t actually come right out and have a grownup discussion with these people and pass clean energy and climate policy like other countries. We have to hide it. That’s the only way to pass any progressive policy.”

Maybe the progressives should not in your words, “hide” the bills, maybe the issues should be debated and presented as stand alone themselves (and I am not talking about massive cap and trade bills). Then with a wrong outcome you could legitimately be pissed off. As someone who is in the business the RES would greatly affect on the positive side I’ve always been against the progressive side hiding the issues. It grinds me more that a back door method is attempted. If one truly believes the merit of ones case and in this case an RES and cash grants etc, let that case and its merits speak for themselves in debate and comment and then the public can decide for themselves. The apparant underhanded nature of hiding an issue (and it is underhanded to the general public) with something not connected to that issue is what really bugs me. I personally applaud the GOP for taking a stand, resolve the tax cut issue up or down and then address on its own the RES and its attendent issues in the next congress. One other issue which is apparant in the media all over is that the progressives (I’ll call them Democrats which they are) are really attempting to squeeze in as much as they can in a Lame Duck session because the belief is they can’t get what they want in a new congress. This also is somewhat of a slight of hand and less then honest way of doing business. I can’t believe that if you truly believed in the merits of an RES that you would NOT want it debated as a stand alone with all the merits of the issues presented. Or am I to believe that you would rather your side continue to hide things in bills having nothing to do with the issues (which is some areas is what turns the public off about the current congress). In our business we do not hide issues amongst bigger ones to trick our customers or stakeholders into believing one way or another, we attack and address individual issues based on the merits of each one. That is why my comments in the past on some of Cleantechs discussion of cap and trade were that it was too many sometimes non connected issues tied together that would be better debated as stand alones. It seems that again is the case here.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Roger, that is great news that you also see the need for a Renewable Energy Standard. Surprises and encourages me. Please tell the Republicans in the Senate that Republicans want this clean energy policy passed.
  
  In ten or more stand-alone long-debated (Capitolhearings.org) bills since 1993, Republicans voted against the RES, (and before that when it was called the RPS)
  
  The only Republicans who did vote with us were voted out of office: Lincoln Chafee, Smith, Coleman, Specter etc.
  
  If there is any other Republican voter out there who would like to see an RES, or any clean energy policy, they REALLY need to let the Senate Republicans know that.
Mark

Susan, isn’t it a bit disingenuous to be outraged that a “clean energy policy that we had hidden in the tax bill” has its fate tied to said bill.

If you don’t want your legislation tied to such things, perhaps you should choose at the outset to simply not tie them to predictably partisan bills.

Unless, of course, the point all along was to turn a legislative shellacking into a talking point.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  That is a little disingenuous Mark, after all, the House DID pass a good clean energy bill on its own, Waxman Markey’s ACES, that I wrote about many times.
  
  But the minority party in the Senate would not let it come up for an up or down vote (remember they use the filibuster: a 60 votes “vote to vote”, to prevent us having an up or down vote), despite one Republican (Graham) attempting to cross party lines and work with Kerry on it for most of last year.
  
  The GOP has filibustered the clean energy provisions like a Renewable Energy Standard on at least 6 attempts over the last decade. There are numerous examples, and it is maddening. It is almost as if they are working for a foreign power that wants us to be left in the lurch.
  
  Believe me, if it could be addressed as stand alone, it wouldn’t be stupid.
  
  Clean energy IS a partisan issue, unfortunately. The GOP will not agree to any. Only fossil energy.
Karl

I agree! It really feels like we as a country are being left behind (technologically and financially) . Financially, our inability to foster new companies focusing on innovative renewables and clean tech will in the long term sink us deeper into a financial quagmire. Why don’t they get this? Many US clean tech companies have worked very hard to build their businesses and have the potential to be great but they can’t go at it alone especially when competing with other countries who are increasing (at massive levels) their spending of home grown renewables. How come the republicans claim to be so business friendly but seem to hate businesses that would give us energy independence and clean technology? Obviously they are very selective in the types of businesses they are friendly to.
CB

Why we are disgusted with politicians.
woodkitten

This is common info already out there, so knowing that the CEO of GM is pissed will help me how ?
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  GE makes wind turbines, etc. GM is different
Bob Wallace

GE seems to be on the road to being a good guy corporation. Building wind turbines, purchasing thousands of EVs, speaking out on the side of energy legislation.

I hope they’re using their many lobbyists to carry their message to Congress Members offices and fundraisers. Big companies carry big sticks.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Not big enough, apparently. The companies that make green tech are not able to get a decent green policy. GE is a founding member of USCAP that tried to get the climate bill passed. No luck.
http://electric-vehicles-cars-bikes.blogspot.com/ Paul

Hey Sue,

Head over to Business Insider.

They run regular posts on US inequality.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-inequality-in-america-2011-11

http://www.businessinsider.com/bernanke-inequality-is-destroying-america-2010-12
Kum Dollison

Do you know what we have in common, Susan? We both paid more in U.S. income taxes last year than did G.E.

I respect your right to an opinion, and I think I have a right to an opinion. But, as far as I’m concerned, the “management” at GE can go blow their smoke in China, or, wherever they pay taxes.
http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

I just read an interesting example of how spoilt our rich have become:

“The newly released 1943 data make for absolutely stunning reading. We have simply never had clearer evidence of just how much America used to expect out of individual wealthy Americans — and just how little, by comparison, we expect out of our wealthy today.

We learn, for instance, that 1941’s top executive at IBM, Thomas Watson, collected $517,221 in compensation that year, about $7.7 million in current dollars. Watson paid 69 percent of his total 1941 income in federal income tax.