Legates: Why does state energy plan sound familiar?

Dr. David R. Legates is an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware and the director of research and education at the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. He also serves on the Advisory Board of A Better Delaware.

Recently, the state’s new five-year energy plan has been made available for a second round of feedback. A new energy plan is due this year; after all, it has been five years since the last one was implemented.

Five-year plans will sound familiar to those of you who remember the old Soviet “five-year plans for the development of the national economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” Other communist nations, such as the People’s Republic of China, also adopted five-year plans.

The proposed five-year plan for the development of the state economy of Delaware focuses heavily on a transition to so-called renewable energy. This requirement was legislated by House Bill 99, through its goal of achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The five-year plan also establishes an offshore wind procurement program to facilitate this net-zero transition. This plan will extend through 2029, just in time to see the state achieve its preliminary goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by one-half by 2030.

While the plan calls for a myriad of things to address climate change, none of them are new concepts. For example, the plan pushes for getting the public to adopt electric vehicles and to restrict the purchase of vehicles that run on fossil fuels. Transportation is the largest sector that uses energy ( more than one-third ), and thus, converting transportation to batteries is essential to meeting the 2030 goal set by HB 99.

Moreover, this transition will necessarily reduce funds to the state arising from motor fuel taxes. Consequently, the state’s five-year plan calls for the development of a revised fee structure to extract taxes from owners of zero-emission vehicles. After all, state revenue cannot be sacrificed at the altar of green energy.

Other objectives established by the five-year plan include the transition to biodiesel and other sources of energy that will limit our food supply and make it even more expensive to feed our families. Taxpayer funds also will be earmarked to facilitate the transition to so-called renewable energy sources. After all, this transition will not come cheaply.

The plan also puts environmental justice and energy equity front and center. Note that wind and solar are neither “clean” nor “green, ” as the mining and production of the components required to manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels and batteries necessary to facilitate this transition are associated with child exploitation, slavery, land destruction and the creation of toxic lakes. Consequently, the transition to wind and solar energy necessarily harms people and children in developing and underdeveloped countries. If one is truly concerned about environmental justice, why does the plan favor energy sources that harm poor countries through the creation of hazardous waste, the extraction of the requisite rare earth minerals and the degradation of land uses from which they, and especially their children, clearly do not benefit?

Of course, the plan will achieve energy equity by making energy so expensive, few will be able to afford it. The legislature set this process in motion, and the administration, through the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, is all too willing to implement it. This plan must be derailed if Delaware is to remain a great place to live.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org .