Wealthier homeowners nab billions in tax credits for energy efficiency
Upper-income homeowners are scooping up billions of dollars in tax credits for making their residences more energy efficient, while the poor are getting almost nothing under the same Biden administration effort.
That’s according to an analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News of a tax credit program that was expanded under President Joe Biden and is designed to spur homeowners to buy solar panels, insulation materials and other items that can reduce energy bills and home emissions.
The analysis found that the highest-earning 25 percent of households — those with taxable incomes of $100,000 or more — got 66 percent of the tax credits, worth a total of $5.5 billion. Meanwhile, the lowest-earning 25 percent, with taxable incomes below $25,000, received just $32 million.
More than $2 billion went to households earning over $200,000 a year.
The wealth disparity alarms some economists and advocates, raising concerns that the credits are giving taxpayer money to hundreds of thousands of people who don’t need financial help or incentives to buy equipment that saves them substantial money on energy bills.
“These tax credits don’t increase the affordability for families making over $500,000. They can already afford it. And they get lower energy prices,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
Tax credits reduce dollar for dollar the income tax that individuals and households owe the federal government. The residential energy credits in 2023 cut income taxes — and federal revenue — by a total of $8.4 billion.
The average credit was $2,340, but credits were much larger for people with higher income.
The wealth disparity also intensifies questions about the Biden administration’s unprecedented use of tax incentives as a cornerstone of his climate change policy.
Brookings Institution economist Sanjay Patnaik said the growing costs of the credits and of other federal spending on climate change could turn public opinion against programs that Biden and Congress created or enlarged.
“It’s a lot of money for relatively low emissions reductions,” Patnaik, director of Brookings’ Center on Regulation and Markets, said of the energy tax credits. “It runs the risk of making climate policy less accepted by the public because people will say, This is running up a big bill and is costing much more than expected.”
The Congressional Budget Office projected in 2022 that the energy tax credits would cost $2.4 billion in 2023.
In response to E&E News’ findings, a Treasury Department spokesperson said that “the tax credits are largely benefitting the middle class,” adding that the hundreds of billions of dollars of additional Inflation Reduction Act funding is helping “left behind places.”
Patnaik had a different perspective: “It’s basically people that are pretty wealthy are getting significantly large tax credits for making their home more energy-efficient.”
The Treasury Department said it wants the tax credits to help middle-income families, and highlighted a statistic showing that 47 percent of the recipients in 2023 had taxable income below $100,000. U.S. median household income, which is typically higher than taxable income, was $74,600 in 2022.
“Our broad goal is to make sure that middle-class and working-class Americans throughout the country are aware of these credits,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told reporters Aug. 7.
But Treasury’s analysis omits information showing that higher-income households dominated the energy tax credits.
People with income below $100,000 accounted for 76 percent of all federal taxpayers in 2023. Yet they received only 34 percent of the energy tax credits — $2.9 billion in total, according to an E&E News analysis that Treasury did not dispute.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/28/biden-energy-tax-credits-homeowners-00174019
**************************************************How Trump Can Win on Energy: Zero Energy Poverty
As vice president, Harris has backed so-called net zero, which means offsetting every iota of manmade greenhouse gases. Walz, as governor, has pushed one of the most aggressive net-zero policies in America, mandating no carbon emissions in Minnesota by 2040.
This promise is economic suicide.
Not only is it unachievable, but ramping up unreliable and costly energy sources like wind and solar while eliminating reliable and affordable options like natural gas and nuclear power is disastrous.
It inevitably means a dramatic and ongoing drop in our standard of living—a drop that’s already begun. Thanks to net zero, Americans are already paying more on utility bills and everyday goods, even as more homes and businesses suffer rolling blackouts that are getting worse.
As the Republican ticket, Donald Trump and JD Vance should fight this madness—but they have to be smart. Republicans have never effectively responded to net zero, which has a positive sound that appeals to Americans. People will only rally around something equally (or ideally more) inspiring. And no, simply praising fossil fuels won’t cut it.
Here’s a real winning message: zero energy poverty.
Zero energy poverty casts a powerful vision, one that can be realized by unleashing our vast natural resources. Such resources can deliver a future in which no one would struggle to afford utility bills.
No one would have to choose between filling up their car and feeding their family or getting medical care. Everyone would benefit from better jobs, higher wages, better health, and a new era of innovation. With a vision like that, no one could oppose zero energy poverty.
Why might this rallying cry work? To start, it connects environmental and energy policy to people’s true priorities.
While 70% of Americans support tackling climate change, just 2% say it’s the most important issue facing the country, according to Gallup. Eighteen times as many Americans list the economy as their top concern, for good reason.
After years of soaring inflation and slow-to-nonexistent wage growth, families are legitimately worried about getting poorer, and many are. A stunning 8 out of 10 people now think their children’s lives will be worse than their own. Moving to eliminate energy poverty can help reverse this dispiriting pessimism, ushering in a new era of optimism born of greater opportunity.
Zero energy poverty also highlights that net zero is the path to poverty unless you’re politically well-connected—see the massive subsidies that the Biden-Harris administration is throwing at green companies.
Net zero requires curtailing freedom and massively growing government, as evidenced by bans on gas-powered cars, natural gas appliances, and the forced closure of reliable electricity plants—all of which are driving widespread economic pain.
Americans’ suffering will worsen as ham-fisted policies force continued emissions cuts without regard to economic or environmental reality. If you want a family budget you can’t balance, or if you’d rather risk death from frostbite or heat stroke when the power goes out, net zero is for you.
And while net zero’s proponents talk a big game about good-paying jobs and economic growth, their record is one of failure. Their policies lead to economywide deindustrialization—just ask Europe.
Like net zero, the goal of zero energy poverty is aspirational. Unlike net zero, it’s achievable and will improve lives.
It’s a springboard for policies that tap America’s boundless energy potential, yielding tangible benefits like lower utility bills and cheaper food, which requires energy to grow and transport. Fully tapping American energy can also make housing more affordable and durable and healthcare more innovative and accessible.
And yes, zero energy poverty is the best path to making the environment cleaner since it calls for policies that unleash emission-lowering innovation without undermining the economy. Zero energy poverty means an easier everyday existence, greater wealth, better health, and a more expansive and inclusive American dream.
Americans’ quality of life depends on energy—affordable, abundant, reliable energy. The promise of zero energy poverty provides a way to remind society of this fact, fostering greater support for essential, on-demand energy sources like oil, natural gas, and nuclear.
These energy sources aren’t poisons to be avoided, as net zero implies. They’re a critical tool for human progress—a tool that America must continue to use for the betterment of all.
One of the best things Donald Trump can do is promise to replace the Harris-Walz climate agenda with a real pathway to “zero energy poverty.”
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/08/31/how-trump-can-win-on-energy-zero-energy-poverty/
*********************************************Exposing the Waste in Climate Solutions
The report “Funding Failure” from Oil Change International pushes the familiar narrative that financial institutions are betraying climate goals by continuing to fund fossil fuel projects.
It highlights the billions of dollars that banks funnel into the fossil fuel industry, suggesting that this funding undermines efforts to combat climate change.
However, this narrative crumbles when you examine the broader context and the actual spending priorities.
In 2023, global banks provided around $700 billion in financing to the fossil fuel sector. While this might sound like a staggering figure, it’s relatively modest when compared to the U.S. defense budget, which exceeded $850 billion in the same year.
This comparison reveals that fossil fuel financing, far from being the primary obstacle to addressing climate change, is dwarfed by other spending priorities. U.S. healthcare spending was approximately $4.3 trillion in 2022—again, a figure that puts the fossil fuel financing into perspective.
Even social programs, with the U.S. spending over $1.2 trillion on Social Security alone in 2023, dwarf the financial flows for global fossil fuels.
When you consider these numbers, the obsession with fossil fuel divestment starts to seem less like a rational policy and more like an ideological crusade.
This misplaced priority is further highlighted when we examine the wasteful spending on so-called “climate solutions” that are both unproven and impractical.
The report sheds light on this issue, revealing that an astonishing $2 trillion has been poured into unproven climate technologies.
These include the much-touted carbon capture and storage (CCS) and fossil hydrogen (also known as blue hydrogen), both of which are emblematic of the broader waste and inefficiency that plague the current climate policy landscape.
Carbon capture involves capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from sources like power plants or industrial facilities before they enter the atmosphere.
The captured CO2 is then stored underground or used in other processes. Despite the hype, this technology is expensive, energy-intensive, and has yet to prove scalable or economically viable.
The irony is that while trillions are spent trying to capture CO2 from fossil fuels, the world continues to rely on these same fossil fuels for energy, and CCS does little to change that reality.
https://principia-scientific.com/exposing-the-waste-in-climate-solutions/
*************************************************Australia: "In an attempt to go green, we are losing our green"
Catriona Rowntree has slammed the Victorian government over “secretive” plans to build a massive renewable energy battery project next to her farm southwest of Melbourne.
The Getaway presenter, 53, is furious about the proposal to build batteries and solar panels on 770 hectares of land in Little River at the base of the You Yangs Regional Park, just outside Geelong, saying locals were blindsided by the plans and fear it poses a fire risk.
“You are about to learn what many of us across the state of Victoria are being blindsided with — that is in an attempt to go green, we are losing our green,” she told followers on Instagram ahead of an appearance on the ABC.
Rowntree later told the broadcaster the state government was trying to “sneak through” the proposal “and the council did not know”.
“I’m feeling like the canary in the coal mine,” she told ABC Melbourne radio host Raf Epstein. “If you don’t know something’s happening, how can you object? That’s what happened to us.”
ACEnergy acquired the land in 2023 to build the Little River Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), with the development application currently being considered by Victorian Department of Transport and Planning.
The 350MW/700MWh lithium battery farm would be one of the state’s largest if it goes ahead and “support Victoria’s clean energy transition”.
“By providing a reliable and flexible storage solution, it will help balance supply and demand, integrating more renewable energy into the grid and reducing reliance on fossil fuels,” ACEnergy states on its website.
Rowntree, a long-time presenter on the Channel 9 travel program, spoke at Tuesday night’s Geelong Council meeting to voice her concerns about the Sandy Creek Road project, saying she had only found out through press reports days earlier.
“It is currently on prime agricultural land and historically, this property in a fire corridor,” she said, the Geelong Advertiser reported.
She noted fatal bushfires had ripped through the area in 1969 and suggested other sites in the area may be more suitable. “As you know, this is a high wind area, and opposite the You Yangs Park 500m away,” she said.
At the meeting, Geelong Mayor Trent Sullivan agreed that the community had been caught “unaware”.
“Whether it’s a battery [or a] a waste-to-energy incinerator, things that have been tried to, I dare say, be snuck through by the state government, the community must be made aware of it,” he said.
A decision on the project is expected by the end of the year and construction would begin in 2025.
Cr Sullivan said on Thursday the council had written to the state government to request and extension of the community consultation period, which ends on September 7, by three weeks.
***************************************
All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment