This year, Grover Norquist and ALEC famously declared war on renewable energy, sponsoring legislation to roll-back renewable portfolio standards (RPS) — a fundamental energy policy that 30 states have put in place to increase the amount of renewables powering their grids.
How’s that working out?
The Center for the New Energy Economy just released a report (pdf) taking a comprehensive look at the 121 RPS-related bills introduced this session.
Bottom line: No dice for RPS rollbacks. And 8 states either increased (CO, MN, NV) or modified (CT, MD, MT, VA, WA) their RPS this session.
And that doesn’t even count Georgia’s new 525 MW solar program.
Bloomberg just published an article updating the score.
The reality is that ALEC is losing these efforts left and right – and it’s no surprise given how out of touch it is with American voter opinion. Turns out, in a democracy it’s harder than it looks to get rid of super popular and broadly beneficial clean energy programs.
Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.
