The Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll argues that Tim Pawlenty’s decision to sign a bill imposing Renewable Energy Standards on Minnesota in 2007 is worse than his prior support for cap-and-trade (which he has apologized for):
The core of the bill is a mandate requiring all energy companies to provide at least 25 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2025.
The policy is actually not all that novel. Twenty-eight other states have similar policies. They are called Renewable Energy Standards. The problem for Pawlenty is that in many ways, an RES is worse than cap and trade. …
According to Heritage, a national RES [at 22.5 percent, not 25 percent] would raise household electricity prices by 36 percent, cut gross domestic product by $5.2 trillion, and reduce employment by more than 1 million jobs.
RES has not yet become the epithet that “cap and trade” is in conservative circles, but by the end of 2012 it will be. After cap and trade collapsed in the Senate, President Obama began pushing a national RES in its place.