Taxing the Sun

Virginia Chapter Sierra Club

 

The State Corporation Commission’s latest attack on clean energy makes clear just how out of touch this body, charged with regulating electric utilities, is with the people of Virginia and the reality of climate change (“Power customers to see bill refund,” Nov. 27 news story).

In approving a standby charge, a tax on the sun, the SCC believes AEP’s claim that citizens who put solar panels on their homes are somehow shortchanging the rest of us.

This position could not be further from the truth, but it is consistent with the SCC’s recent attack on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan to reduce climate-changing carbon pollution by encouraging investments in efficiency, wind and solar.

When businesses and homeowners install solar panels, they actually save the rest of us money by deferring the need for AEP to invest in new power plants.

Sadly, Commissioners Mark Christie, Judith Jagdmann and James Dimitri care more about protecting utilities’ monopoly on electricity sales than about Virginians or the climate.

 

GLEN BESA

Virginia Director
Sierra Club
RICHMOND

Taxing the Sun was originally published on Rural Madison