#ncga: Solar Lives! (Phil,Timmy and The Party of Mandates)
I never thought I’d see the day when Republicans cheer the extension of 
government mandates that are PROVEN to squeeze more money out of working people’s pockets.
With each passing day, the few of us who still pay attention are reminded more and more about just how badly we got played for fools in 2010:
A compromise bill to overhaul solar policy in North Carolina is on its way to the governor. But critics say wind energy paid too high a price for the deal.[…]
You think wind energy interests paid too high of a price? (Wait ’til you see your utility bills over the next few years.) MORE:
The deal was unveiled at around 12:30 a.m. Friday – the last day of the current legislative session – after days of tense negotiation between House and Senate leadership.
House leaders, including SpeakerTim Moore, strongly backed the original solar overhaul bill, the product of a stakeholder negotiation process that took 10 months to reach agreement. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, refused to allow the bill to proceed without adding a four-year moratorium on wind energy development in the state.
Brown, R-Onslow, said the timeout would allow a consultant to complete maps showing areas where wind turbines would interfere with military aircraft training.
The final deal includes an 18-month moratorium – through the end of 2018 – on issuing any state permits for wind farms. No exceptions are made for the Timbermill Wind and Alligator River wind projects currently in development.
The Department of Defense has repeatedly said the two projects would not conflict with flight training paths at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. But Brown said he doesn’t necessarily believe they wouldn’t hurt the state in the next round of base closures and said the state needs to specify areas where wind development should be banned.
Some may try to argue that Berger, Brown, et. al, got the best deal they could out of the situation. But THIS was a Republican-dominated legislature. An alleged driver of an alleged “conservative revolution.” MORE: 
[…] Other Democrats argued that even the shorter 18-month moratorium would still be detrimental to the development of wind energy in the state.
“I’m told that one of the two companies is going to pull out if this moratorium occurs,” said Rep.Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford. “We have a tremendous wind resource in our state, and I think this is the wrong signal to send.”
A “tremendous wind resource” in this state??? EVERYBODY HAS GOT WIND. (EVERYBODY.)
Sponsor Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, conceded that it wasn’t the bill that left the House, but he said the solar provisions would still benefit utility customers, adding that “85 percent of something” is better than nothing.
A bag filled 85 percent with flaming dog poo left on your front porch is JUST AS BAD as one filled to 100 percent.
It’s not surprising the Democrats went for this. But we have REPUBLICANS — the alleged guardians of the free market and protectors of the people from the tyranny of government — blessing the extension of government mandates that JACK UP YOUR POWER BILLS. These Republicans are blessing the government subsidy and protection of a business that could not survive on its own without tax dollars.
In Raleigh, just like in DC, it looks like we’re stuck with two choices: One that wants to run 100 percent of your life, and another that just wants to run 85 percent of it.
It’s also becoming painfully clear, thanks to the HB2 retreat, THIS, and the bill putting hog farms over private property rights, among other things, that — if you don’t have a big check in your hand — Jones Street has no use for you.
Benefit consumers? These tyrants did not even invite anyone representing consumers to their stakeholder meetings. Consumers are the major stakeholders out there, but Szoka and his allies only invited the special interests, and this special interest bill that resulted stinks to high heaven. Expensive and unreliable wind and solar energy is a huge detriment to consumers. Relying on it heavily has given German consumers electric bills that are three times those of North Carolinians.. This special interest bill grandfathers in a massive overcharge on consumers to benefit the solar cabal for another 30 months. Shame, shame on our liberal legislators.
The state Republican platform calls for an end to the renewable energy mandate. North Carolina is the only state in our region that has one, and it will make us uncompetitive in seeking new industry as it drives up our electric rates. The state Republican platform also calls for using market forces in dealing with renewable energy, but this bill is totally in the opposite direction, using corporate welfare and crony capitalism to stack the deck for special interests..
The best the Senate could have gotten was just to kill this rotten and anti-Republican anti-conservative anti-consumer special interest bill.
.We have a lot of fake Republicans in the legislature who betrayed the party rank and file by voting for this awful bill. We need to take them out in primaries starting with the solar cabal’s rent boy, John Szoka. If we do not succeed in getting them in the primaries, we need to shun them in the general election. Turncoats like this are worse than Democrats.
It IS Conservative to address the fact that fossil fuel is finite and that wind, solar, and increased efficiency of use are the viable long term strategies for our energy needs.
The flaming bag of poop that is referred to here is the limited, smelly, polluting strategy of burning depleted fossil fuels.
Wind and solar are not ready for prime time as they are not price competitive. It may be conservative to fund research that might make them price competitive but not to subsidize inefficient systems of the present technology. Wind and solar are both intermittent sources as well, and thus unreliable unless some technology is developed to store electricity.
What is really conservative is the free market, not crony capitalist favoritism to one type of producer.
Raleigh looks like more like the District of Corruption everyday.
We are on the edge of hopelessness.
What can I say more. You continue to make a valid case for conservatives to organize independently of any political party. There will always be Tim Moores, David Lewis’s, Nelson $’s, etal..
Watching Moore and Berger this session, I keep wondering if they have a political death wish. This is the election cycle that comes every 12 years with a very low turnout because the only statewide races are the judicial ones. Winning the election in this type of cycle requires firing up your base, and that is not something done with money. It is done with issues. Instead of firing up their base to go vote, Moore and Berger have been busy this session punching their base in the gut, discouraging them from any interest in the upcoming election – HB2 repeal, porky budget, special interest solar ripoff, deep sixing key gun rights legislation, etc. There has been nothing this session for the GOP base to get excited about and lots of them to get discouraged about. That cannot end well in a cycle like this one.
President Obama’s green energy legacy lives in North Carolina! And it is all due to progressive Republicans in the General Assembly. They cast aside free enterprise, their own party principles, and their own party platform to advance the principles of President Obama, George Soros, Tom Steyer, Nancy Pelosi, and myself, Hallelujah!
Yes, we did take a tiny hit on wind, but that is just temporary, Overall this was a great bill for saving the polar bears. If the humans have to pay electric bills they cannot afford, that is just too bad.
We do not even need Democrats to advance the agenda of our green left when we have progressive Republicans like Timmy Moore eating out of our hands. Now we have Phil Berger on our side, too, Phil used to not be a progressive, but he is learning rapidly,