The wind and solar industries are crying foul, as is Elon Musk. As for me and many others, we are of the thought that it’s about damned time that the Green New Deal energy subsidies are getting kicked to the curb.
Congressional Republicans are poised to reverse course on U.S. energy policy by wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives for solar and wind projects as well as for consumers seeking to purchase everything from energy-saving appliances to electric cars.
The Senate’s tax bill, which cleared a key procedural hurdle Saturday, contains strict green energy cutbacks that disappointed lobbyists for solar, wind and battery companies, who hoped senators would temper some of the House’s most draconian cuts. It also imposes a new tax on existing wind and solar farms if they include materials from a foreign entity like China — a huge blow for the renewables industry, which incorporates many materials from China across its supply chain.
“They’re proposing an outright massacre with punishing new taxes on these industries,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) wrote in a statement on Saturday. He said Republicans added what amounts to a “death sentence” for green energy, with provisions added “in the middle of the night” Friday before voting started in the Senate.
A “massacre.” Really Ron? Really? Folks, the wind and solar green new deal scam over the last decade or so has been subsidized by We The Taxpayer. If it weren’t for you and I ponying up (thanks to the largesse of Congress AND several Democrat & Republican administrations) millions of dollars in subsidies, neither of those two industries would’ve made it off the ground. The lack of reliability is the issue here.
It is ironic that Jason Grumet of the American Clean Power Association argues for continued taxpayer subsidies for wind power. In 1986, a predecessor organization to ACPA, the American Wind Energy Association, testified, “The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive.” False. Fourteen extensions of the “temporary” Production Tax Credit since 1992 reaffirm the inherent problems of an electricity generation alternative that is dilute, intermittent, and full of unique ecological drawbacks.
Think about it. If all this clean energy from wind and solar is SO lucrative, how come it doesn’t, can’t, and won’t pay for itself? Seriously, there is no ROI for all this intermittent power.
Which is why I say that it’s about damned time these subsidies were kicked to curb. Needless to say, Democrats are clutching all the pearls and then some.
In the dead of night, Republicans added a new dangerous provision to their Budget Bill – a tax on wind and solar energy. The bill now not only slashes investments in wind and solar, but places an expensive penalty on those projects. This will crush these industries and make our…
— Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet) June 29, 2025
Sorry Mikey, those industries are already crushing themselves because of their inability to provide power on even a semi-regular basis. Furthermore, our energy costs have gone UP annually because wind and solar are incredibly expensive to build and maintain.
The shelf life of wind and solar is about 25 years…max. That’s it. In fact, one of the very first solar fields has been obsolete from the get-go. Why? Because it never worked.
The Department of Energy on Thursday announced a settlement to recover $200 million in taxpayer funds from Tonopah Solar Energy, a first-of-its-kind Nevada solar project that never showed a profit and frequently was offline.
The $1 billion Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant, which received $737 million in loan guarantees in 2011, has been offline since April 2019. The closure brought back memories of California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra which received a $535 million federal loan guarantee in 2009 only to file for bankruptcy in 2011.
Yes, we all remember Solyndra. Yet the politicians never learned a lesson from that debacle. And there are still companies going bankrupt. According to this, over 100 solar companies went bankrupt in the last two years. If solar energy is all that great and wonderful, how come so many can’t turn a profit?
As for wind, they can’t turn a profit either. Furthermore, both wind and solar are ecological disasters when it comes to recycling. Because most of the components aren’t recyclable at all.
Not only that, but many of the wind projects already in place, or that are planned, don’t provide power to the residents of the state they are in. That’s correct. The wind projects in Wyoming send the power elsewhere.
Elon Musk isn’t happy about this move.
The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025
Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. https://t.co/TZ9w1g7zHF
If Elon would take a step back and look at the whole picture across the world, he’d realize that the wind and solar generation has been nothing more than a financial disaster for every country involved. Spain’s blackouts on the Iberian Peninsula earlier this spring are a case in point. Wind and solar were completely unable to take over and keep the demand on the grid online.
Furthermore, the power produced isn’t all that powerful.
The other thing is, wind and solar aren’t reliable. When the wind doesn’t blow (paging AOC), zero power is generated. When the sun isn’t shining, zero power is generated. The Democrats refuse to acknowledge those very real facts, in favor of pushing the Green New Deal.
A final case in point, the UK has subsidized wind and solar for years, with zero return on investment. Which has led to them throwing a $24 Billion wind and solar project into the trash.
Kicking these taxpayer funded energy subsidies to the curb is a very good start.
Feature Photo Credit: wind solar bulb by Vaclav Volrab, Royalty-free stock photo ID: 267293942 via Shutterstock, cropped and modified
rbj1 says: ““They’re proposing an outright massacre with punishing new taxes on these industries,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) wrote in a statement on Saturday.”
Wait, so there’s a tax Democrats don’t like?
If you want to go green, go nuclear.
Cameron says: I will support the restoration of those subsidies once we have nuclear power plants across the country.
Dietrich says: Took a vaca on the big island of Hawai’i back in the day. On the southern most tip of the island are HUGH windmills, at the time of their construction the largest in the world. One of the continuously windiest locations in the world, and the windmills were not turning. I chatted up some locals when we stopped for lunch and learned they had been turned off for years as there was no market for the energy.
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