Subsidies for Electric Vehicles and Wind and Solar Power

In today's Cooler Heads Digest from Myron Ebel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, comes this from the lead article by Ben Lieberman:

On electric vehicles (EVs), Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) of the House Ways and Means Committee is pushing to change the provisions that capped the $7,500 per vehicle tax credit once a manufacturer sold 200,000 such cars. H.R. 2256 proposes raising the cap to 600,000 vehicles but only slightly reducing the credit to $7,000. For Tesla, which has exceeded the 200,000 vehicle limit, and General Motors, which is nearing it, the extra 400,000 qualifying vehicles could generate $2.8 billion each for their EV purchasers, nearly half of which are wealthy Californians. Given that other automakers would have eventually reached and exceeded 200,000 in EV sales, the revised cap could be worth tens of billions of dollars in the years ahead. EVs are way past the point of the “infant industry” rationale for these tax credits, but that does not seem to matter. 

Also under discussion for eventual inclusion in a big energy tax package are additional years for solar and wind production tax credits promised by Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA). These tax credits had been made more generous by the 2015 bill in exchange for ending them once and for all. It is not yet known how many post-sunset years the latest extension will provide. 

One fringe benefit of the debate is that it provides a brief respite from the drumbeat of claims that wind and solar have plummeted in cost and are now cheaper than conventional electricity. If true, there would be no need for yet another extension of favored tax treatment for them.

So even after all these years, electric vehicles are not ready for prime-time consumers and even wealthy Californians have to be bribed by the government to buy them.  Seems to me, I have heard Democrats complaining a lot about their conjurings of a bribe in one context, yet they are constantly bribing Americans to do their bidding.  A bribe to the advantage of socialism is no bribe, just as a lie to the advantage of socialism is the truth.  You just have to understand their reality-free context.

That last quoted paragraph is a humdinger.  Apparently, the propaganda breaks down a bit when it comes time to claim a subsidy for investments that make no sense in the free market.

Letter to President Trump Recommending a President's Commission on Climate Security

I recently defended Prof. William Happer from an absurd and highly irrational attack upon his qualifications to head a President's Commission on Climate Security which was published on the front page of the Washington Post.  Many of the alarmist advocates of catastrophic man-made global warming are adamantly opposed to any critical review of the science and the claims of catastrophe resulting from increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or from small temperature increases should they occur.  They are terrified that further debate and evaluation of these claims that would drain many trillions of dollars out of our economy and lower the standard of living of all Americans will reveal to the public many of the errors in their physics and their hugely exaggerated claims of harmful effects.

There are many critics of the so-called consensus science of catastrophic man-made global warming.  Some of us have just sent the following letter to President Trump recommending the formation of a President's Commission on Climate Security.  I am publishing a copy of that letter, which I have signed, below:

The point of posting the letter here is to take full responsibility for my action in signing this letter.  Those who will damn me are welcome to do so, though it would be much more effective if you can provide a rational reason for doing so.  I am confident that in subsequent decades my action in standing up for my evaluation of the claims of catastrophic man-made global warming will be proven to be correct and courageous.  I am willing to bet my reputation that I am among the American heroes who advocated strongly against the horrendous mistake of believing in catastrophic man-made global warming and the highly destructive acts that have and likely will continue to occur as a result of that erroneous and not infrequently larcenous claim.  A man is not a real man unless he stands with integrity for his ideas and his principles.