Oregon’s biggest problem used to be logging jobs lost from spotted owl lawsuits.
A new sort problem is developing. Green jobs and green programs are going off the rails. Portland recently passed a draconian “Climate Action Plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% that has little chance of succeeding by its 2050 deadline.
Read the story from the Oregonian here
The latest news is that the Green Tax breaks aren’t what they were promised to be and taxpayers are getting hosed for a cost 40 times what was voted on:
State lowballed cost of green tax breaks
State officials deliberately underestimated the cost of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s plan to lure green energy companies to Oregon with big taxpayer subsidies, resulting in a program that cost 40 times more than unsuspecting lawmakers were told, an investigation by The Oregonian shows.
It gets worse. Now tax breaks are being sold in Oregon for less than they are worth.
Read about it here in the Register Guard
The tax credits can be sold, enriching companies that have nothing to do with renewable energy, and the swelling program is a drain on state revenue, critics say.
Here are some examples:
- Peak Sun Silicon, of Millersburg, sold a $3.25 million tax credit to US Bank for $2.18 million.
- Peak Sun also sold a $5.85 million tax credit to two companies: Nordstrom for $2.85 million and Standard Insurance for $2 million.
- Solaicx, of Portland, sold a $9.04 million tax credit to US Bank for $6.05 million.
- SolarWorld, of Hillsboro, sold an $11 million tax credit to Wal-Mart for $7.37 million.
- SolarWorld also sold a $10.96 million tax credit to Flir Systems, of Portland, for $7.34 million.
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A lot of the time, people deserve what they get.
Please everyone, get out there and stop your representatives from doing the same to YOU!!!
Didn’t take them long to find a way to fleece the taxpayers.
Wow I love the anecdotal evidence of rent-seeking behaviour. The gall of some of these companies is amazing.
As an afterthought… how many spotted owls get killed every year by the wind turbines?
Bulldust: “Wow I love the anecdotal evidence of rent-seeking behaviour. The gall of some of these companies is amazing.”
Gall? GALL??!! It is the duty of every right thinking company and person to exploit environmental stupidity to the maximum detriment of their fellow citizen. Only through pain will ordinary citizens gain the gumption to throw off their oppressors.
Wow, the Register-Guard and The Oregonian are probably the most liberal papers in the state and normally cheer on every nutty green idea. Nice to see something like journalism in those daily fish-wrappers.
Interesting that The Oregonian notes that The Guv squeezed out our long-time energy department director over tax breaks for Oregon Windfarms. This is the same guy who squeezed out my friend George Taylor as state climatologist because George wouldn’t toe the party line.
As I recall, Uncle Ted said that there should be one voice on climate policy in Oregon, and that voice would be his. Actually, that voice is from SOS Bill Bradbury who was personally trained by Al Baby to motor around the state presenting the Climate Change Roadshow, the Reader’s Digest version of the Inconvenient Truth presentation.
Bradbury is now running for governor because Uncle Ted is term limited.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I am amazed that people are still shocked when this ponzi scheme throws up irregularities .
This is how politicians win big business support for AGW legislation. This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Bulldust (00:27:33) :
The gall of some of these companies is amazing.
Not gall, just proper business. The companies aren’t the ones setting out the rules here or doing the fleecing. If stupid politicians want to give throw away constituents’ money, it would be stupid not to take it. If a company can’t use the tax credit, it’s obligated to its investors to sell the credit for what it can get.
Nobody to blame here but the pols and the dunces who vote for them.
This will make no difference whatsoever to the reelection prospects of the democrats responsible for this nonsense. The stretch of Oregon along I-5 from Portland to Eugene and out to the coast, in which the majority of the population resides, is an environmental nuthouse and marxist collective. They would vote heavily for any sufficiently green democrat, even one who is an admitted pedophile.
“…As an afterthought… how many spotted owls get killed every year by the wind turbines?…”
Bulldust
We DON’T KNOW!!! So you must PAY US to do a STUDY!!!!
A few million of your American Dollars should be sufficient….
“Bulldust (00:31:05) :
As an afterthought… how many spotted owls get killed every year by the wind turbines?”
…Lots. Here in Britain we call wind turbines “bird shredders”.
The Australian government has just drastically cut back a home insulation subsidy program, because of rampant fraud.
I also hear there has been a spate of house fires because of renewable/eco-friendly/organic materials used for insulation.
It would seem that many people who ‘care about the environment’ are not aware that all plant material, when dried, burns nicely.
Wow I love the anecdotal evidence of rent-seeking behaviour. The gall of some of these companies is amazing.
There is no evidence here of rent seeking behaviour by companies.
Government is offering unsolicited rents to certain types of companies.
The sale of tax breaks is presumably legal and inclusion in the report is just the media sensationalizing a routine business transaction.
I strongly suspect that a scheme of this sort is a waste of taxpayers money – probably a waste of a whole lot of money. However, I can’t see what the problem is with allowing companies to resell their tax credits, thus trading long-term income for money up front.
The critics of these deals seem unaware of a basic fact of economics, that time is actually money.
For example, there is a claim in the Register Guard that when Solarworld sold its five-year, $11 million tax credit to Wal Mart for $7.37 million, Wal Mart got a 49% return on their investment.
By this logic, if you buy a 10-year, 4% Treasury bond, you are getting a 40% return. Wal Mart’s annual return actually works out at 8.3%. Not bad, but definitely not 49%.
What do you expect from a state that won’t allow you to pump your own gas?
It matches the gall of the whole AGW movement. Unsupported science leads to unsupportable policy (corn for fuel) and ordinary politics makes it worse. There are clearly some good scientists and policy makers on the AGW side with good ideas. The problem is that they are drowned out by the “green” political power brokers. Whoops, different green.
“Bulldust (00:31:05) :
As an afterthought… how many spotted owls get killed every year by the wind turbines?”
Lets hope all of them to end this stupidity.
Look what B.C. is doing a little to the north.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/47823327.html
I have had a quick look at the science supporting this plan:
http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=49989&a=268612
“Increasing the amount of these gases, called carbon emissions, in the atmosphere essentially makes the blanket thicker — and warmer. This warming is accompanied by changes in precipitation patterns, increased frequency and intensity of storms, wildfires, droughts and floods, rising sea level, changes in water quality and substantial changes in habitats, including the range of pests and diseases.”
or
“Climate change also poses a significant challenge to public health. Rising temperatures may be accompanied by increased incidents of diseases such as cholera and weather-related mortalities. Rising temperatures are a specific concern for seniors, who are particularly vulnerable to heat stroke — especially in this region, where most homes do not have air conditioning. Additionally, mental health problems such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress syndrome may increase to the extent that people migrate from increasingly inhospitable climates to the temperate Northwest.”
On the other hand, it is recognized that it is not just CO2 or greenhouse gases that have an impact:
http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=49989&a=240683
“The Pacific Northwest will experience more warming in summer, and nights will
cool off less than they do today. Increased urbanization and population growth,
with their related roads and rooftops, will exacerbate the urban heat island effect,
increasing local temperatures even more. Winters will likely be wetter and summers
drier.”
I keep on wondering if just, just maybe reducing the UHI-effect would be extremely more effective for reducing heat-related deaths than reducing Portland’s carbon emissions by 80%. The UHI is well known and well documented and thus an already existing REAL and LARGE effect (can be several degrees Kelvin for larger cities). The reduction in carbon emissions will to next-to-nothing for global temperatures if the rest of the world does not also reduce its carbon emissions by the same amount – which still will have little impact on less than centennial time scales, it is not to be expected that many heat-related deaths will be avoided. But I guess it could be more easily avoided if UHI-warming would be reduced. Or provide elderly people with solar/wind-powered air conditioning.
Anyhow, there hardly is actually any science involved, other than IPCC …
Perhaps I should have said cheek 😀 I realise that the company managers are doing what they were paid to do… max shareholder wealth… still shocking on some level to see the extent of the rorting (albeit by the rules).
It would be interesting to trace some of the relationships between those in industry and those setting the policies… do a lot of ex-Government types end up in cushy exec jobs in industry I wonder? Perhaps even coincidently the companies that may have benefited from their policies generated during their government tenure… perhaps I am somewhat cynical…
More and more, I’ve come to realize that the “green” moniker has very little to do with the environment and everything to do with making $ based on nothing but a huge fraud. When someone says the word “Green”, hang on to your wallet. Tightly.
“As an afterthought… how many spotted owls get killed every year by the wind turbines?”
Imagine what it will be like in 2020 with these shredders going everywhere. One day, there will be a book published, and it will describe a completely horrifying event – a silent spring. This book will become a rallying cry for the next generation of environmental activists. Except these activists will be campaigning for the shredders to be ripped up and replaced with nuclear power – the greenest power known to man.
Just a thought.
This just made my day! Perfect story. I didn’t know that schadenfreude came in green.
As noted, the Eugene-to-Portland corridor is infested with liberal elites, most of whom received a degree in political correctness that required no courses in hard science or critical thinking. You can identify them by their badge of moral superiority, and the color of that badge is green. They’re better than us because they “care.” They also believe that everyone in their movement is “good,” because they care, too. So they give these “good” companies millions of taxpayer dollars in the form of credits, only to watch as the companies turn around and sell them . . . to Wal-Mart! Oh the horror!
“Climate Action Plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% that has little chance of succeeding by its 2050 deadline.
There probably should be an end quote in there somewhere, but then again, maybe not.