Dear Santa … ILSR’s Annual Energy Policy Wish List!

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Originally published at ilsr.org.

Dear Santa,

We’ve been very good this year and, if it isn’t too much trouble, we’d like a few things in 2018, let us know!

Bad Federal Policies

The most accurate characterization for federal clean energy initiatives in 2017 is “filling the swamp.” Proposals include reducing federal incentives for wind power and providing subsidies for aging and expensive centralized, coal and nuclear power plants. A version of the tax bill would also eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles. All three policy changes would result in higher energy costs in the short and long term, result in much greater pollution, and slow efforts by many communities to transition to clean, local power.

Expand Inclusive Energy Financing

Inclusive financing means any utility customer that takes action to reduce their energy use can tap utility-provided capital, and pay back the cost through their utility bill. It means poor credit doesn’t have to be a barrier to clean energy savings. Several utilities already offer zero-down, all-credit access to energy savings and we hope it expands in 2018.

Encourage Local Action

Cities can take charge of their energy future by taking over the utilityseizing responsibility for electricity purchasing, or expanding solar and electric vehicles. We provide more detail of city-level actions in our Community Power Toolkit.

Happy Holidays!

For timely updates, follow John Farrell or Karlee Weinmann on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly update.


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John Farrell

John directs the Democratic Energy program at ILSR and he focuses on energy policy developments that best expand the benefits of local ownership and dispersed generation of renewable energy. His seminal paper, Democratizing the Electricity System, describes how to blast the roadblocks to distributed renewable energy generation, and how such small-scale renewable energy projects are the key to the biggest strides in renewable energy development.   Farrell also authored the landmark report Energy Self-Reliant States, which serves as the definitive energy atlas for the United States, detailing the state-by-state renewable electricity generation potential. Farrell regularly provides discussion and analysis of distributed renewable energy policy on his blog, Energy Self-Reliant States (energyselfreliantstates.org), and articles are regularly syndicated on Grist and Renewable Energy World.   John Farrell can also be found on Twitter @johnffarrell, or at jfarrell@ilsr.org.

John Farrell has 518 posts and counting. See all posts by John Farrell