American Businesses for Clean Energy has sent out a press release on behalf of “60,000 small businesses” in support of EPA regulations necessary to keep the renewabubble inflated. It is a helpful reminder that when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul’s enthusiastic support.
As this fellow noted in reply to a cynical, remarkably similar letter to the editors of the WSJ (found here), not everyone buys the rentseekers’ self-serving pose on “green” responsibility:
[E]nergy-consuming manufacturing companies in competitive industries are not OK with overreaching and scientifically unsound regulations. […Others who feel differently, for example] have regulated businesses in which they are guaranteed a return of all invested capital. Even their nonregulated businesses are protected, in the sense that they have no exposure to foreign competitors who do not have the burden of investing enormous amounts of zero-return capital.
Manufacturers like us not only have to spend money for no return, we have to deal with higher electricity prices that are charged by the CEOs of these utility companies because of the guaranteed returns and cost pass-through they get. Everyone wants a clean environment, but it is clear that while utility CEOs have no downside, regulations improperly done will exact a great toll on the manufacturers and the jobs they provide.