Texas Kills Solar Bill on Last-Minute Motion
A bill in the Texas legislature to create a $500 million rebate program for utility-scale and small-scale solar installations - and jumpstart a Texas solar industry - died late on Friday night on a procedural maneuver. Several people who followed the bill closely said it wasn't voted down on the merits. It was derailed on a picayune legislative point about whether two bills should be melded together.
The death of the bill was unexpected because it had strong support on both sides of the aisle - from rural Republicans such as bill sponsor Sen. Troy Fraser who saw the economic uplift created by wind farms in West Texas to urban Democrats would were in favor the idea of boosting solar-installation jobs. The fate of the bill is also surprising because Texas' effort several years ago to create a wind industry has been so successful.
Proving her point, Jim Marston, head the state chapter of Environmental Defense, bemoaned the death of the solar bill thusly: "We are going to lose a bunch of jobs to other states. We are going to lose all those installation jobs, the kind of jobs that cannot be exported to China and India. And we're not going to get the clean-air benefit."
"This was simply bad luck," says Steve Taylor, a member of the Solar Alliance and executive with Applied Material Inc. "Circumstances and procedural motions." He said solar boosters will meet soon to discuss ways forward, pointing out that the bill passed the state senate on a 26-4 vote.
Read full by Russell Gold Daily analysis of The Wall Street Journal.
What is the point of all the work if anything can be 'knocked out' on a non-issue?
