Renewables Subsidies and the Institutionalization of Irresponsibility

Commentary
The joy of spending huge amounts of tax dollars—Other People’s Money—is a truth obvious and eternal, but the corrupting effects of a systemwide shift toward such subventions are more subtle, and vastly more destructive. That is a central implication of the massive policy favoritism now directed toward unconventional electricity—hugely expensive, unreliable, and environmentally destructive—yielding such utterly perverse results as those now manifest in California, the northeast United States, and Europe. The corrupting effects are illustrated well by the ongoing adverse cost realities, financial mismanagement, and politicized machinations afflicting the Water and Power Authority (WAPA) of the U.S. Virgin Islands. A tempest in a teapot, you say? Not so fast….