Having taken back the House, Republicans say they want to revamp domestic energy policy. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–Wash.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce and its likely chair next year, has said the party wants “workable solutions to make energy cleaner, reduce emissions, prioritize energy security, and keep energy costs low.”
Politicians and bureaucrats have been singing this tune for decades. One thing they’ve done wrong is waste billions of dollars on energy subsidies. Instead of fueling innovation, subsidies have unfairly cherry-picked certain energy sources and technologies, causing both economic and environmental inefficiencies.
In 2017, the consulting firm Management Information Services, Inc. analyzed federal energy expenditures from 1950 to 2016. It found that nonhydro renewable energies, such as solar and wind energy, were the largest beneficiaries of such assistance. Solar and wind received $158 billion, or 16 percent, of federal energy subsidies, mostly through tax credits. By contrast, the nuclear industry received less than half of that, mostly for research and development purposes.
My point isn’t that nuclear should get more government money. None of these industries should be getting this money. If tax credits are given to a specific technology, other products may fail because they did not receive enough capital. These programs then spend their own resources to lobby to expand the subsidy supply. Better to end the handouts and let these companies compete in the marketplace.
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