Two Republican senators are looking to increase government spending on various energy programs, but conservatives accuse them of stifling the free market’s efforts to address energy concerns and effectively helping President Obama pass his climate change agenda.
In a recent piece for Conservative Review, FreedomWorks Senior Fellow Tom Borelli highlights the efforts of Senators Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to increase funding for the Department of Energy through the current appropriations process.
Alexander is focused on federal assistance to develop more nuclear power, which Borelli says is now at a competitive disadvantage as a result of plunging natural gas prices.
“This is not anything new for Mr. Alexander. A while back, he promoted a Republican plan to build something like a hundred nuclear plants and also to increase electric vehicles and double federal energy research. So it seems like the big government playbook is back for Mr. Alexander,” said Borelli.
According to Borelli’s reporting, Sen. Murkowski’s energy priorities include more money for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and for the department’s loan guarantee program. Borelli says her position doesn’t come as a surprise either.
“Lisa Murkowski, back in 2013 she had something called “Energy 20/20: A Vision for America’s Energy Future,” he said. “What she wanted to do was grow the energy research budget.”
Borelli says the actions of Alexander and Murkowski present another headache for GOP leaders already feeling the frustration of conservatives.
“It’s big government out of control. It’s been disappointing so far with conservatives in terms of stopping Obama’s agenda. It’s one thing not to be able to stop the agenda, but to flip around and try to support part of President Obama’s climate change agenda,” said Borelli, who says letting the government pick winners and losers fails to learn one of the key lessons from Obama’s first term.
“The Department of Energy, as we know, led to spectacular clean energy failures like Solyndra,” said Borelli.
But if conservatives claim to champion the “all the above” approach to increasing the domestic energy supply, why are the actions of Alexander and Murkowski being panned? Borelli says it’s not about the goal but about how the goal is achieved.
“It should be done in the free market, not on the taxpayer’s dime. As we’ve seen with Solyndra and other companies that went bankrupt with respect to Department of Energy funds, it’s money that sometimes gets steered to political backers,” said Borelli. “Their ideas couldn’t cut it in the free market to get venture capital support, but you can always get money through government because it’s a very loose system as we’ve seen in the past.”
“What we’d be for is all of the energy, but let it be done in the free market,” added Borelli, who says there is plenty of action in the private sector towards developing diverse sources of energy.
“There’s plenty of venture capital firms out there who would be willing to take a risk on energy research. The problem is when you have government money going in to support energy it crowds out the venture capitalists. Let the venture capitalists take the risk, not the U.S. taxpayer,” he said.
While the appropriations process will play out over a matter of months, will Alexander and Murkowski get the extra spending on energy they want even though Republicans control the Congress now?
“That’s a good question and that’s why conservatives need to pay attention and listen to good shows like yours and get on the phone and get engaged in social media to stop these kind of ideas,” said Borelli.
