In 2008, the U.S. was, with clean energy expenditure, in the lead. Tuesday, the “Who’s Winning the clean energy Race” report by the Pew Environment Group came out. It pointed out that in 2010, Germany was second place while China was in first. About $243 billion was put into finance and investments in clean energy across the world past year. This was a 30 percent increase. China attracted $54.4 billion of that money. About $41.2 billion came from Germany. The United States, although it increased expenditure in clean energy 51 percent to $34 billion, is losing ground. Even though the United States gets about 75 percent of clean energy venture capital, it cannot get energy policies spread out quite a like China can. clean energy investments have been lost by the U.S. because of this. Most are likely to other nations.
GOP against clean energy
Last month, the Obama administration proposed ending oil and gas subsidies that total about $3.6 billion a year to help increase clean energy investment. All of the House Republicans voted to keep them in place. The Obama administration introduced a new energy policy. This would have made it so the U.S. depended less on oil imports and more on natural gas reserves for energy. The administration also wants to increase fuel efficiency in commercial and government fleets and expand the deployment of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Oil industry officials called Obama energy policy "misguided.". The Republican response said the goals were too far into the future to be realistic. Also, they said oil drilling is not being increased enough with the plan. China has been able to dominate the world during this time. Even Argentina used policies leading to a 568 percent increase in clean energy.
What do Republicans really want?
Republicans also threaten to put the United States further behind the rest of the planet in clean energy with spending cuts. Getting rid of the Department of energy Loan Guarantee Program is one suggestion the Republicans have for the spending budget which, with the energy Policy Act of 2005, the Bush administration put into effect. The program is designed to lower risks for loan providers by backing loans to approved clean energy start-ups. The program has either committed or closed almost $18 billion in loan guarantees for 20 clean energy projects worth $28 billion. The DOE showed that a dollar of loan is worth more than that in clean energy. The one dollar drives $13 in expenditure. The DOE estimates that by cutting the program, Republicans would force the withdrawal of six current loans to clean energy projects, kill 25 pending agreements and eliminate 20,000 jobs.
Articles cited
Sustainable Business
sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/22145
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576232481675369892.html
Forbes
blogs.forbes.com/christianwolan/2011/04/05/republican-budget-cuts-threaten-clean-energy-investments/
Daily Kos
www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/03/952153/-Fox-blames-Obama-for-oil-subsidies
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