Congress Playing with Solar and Wind

August 13, 2008

Just playing commercials, it seems. Yesterday in the NY Times Tom Friedman called out McCain, chided Obama, and derided Congress for sleeping at the wheel. Without leadership, essential renewable energy legislation - S. 3335 - is not passing. Politicians are running blatantly green-washed commercials showing miles of turbines turning on American hills, while stifling the laws that would sustain the industry.

S. 3335  would extend tax credits for installing solar energy and building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems, if it was ever enacted. Both industries continue to need their pumps primed to give manufacturers and investors confidence in a future market for these technologies. However, McCain has never voted on it, missing every single voting opportunity. Obama has voted for it 3 times, but missed most of the votes including the last one. And congress has killed it 8 times in a row.

Who are these guys trying to fool?  Uhhh, that would be us. If you've been watching the Olympics this week, you couldn't miss the repeated images of wind turbines powering a new green tech America thanks to President McCain. Obama uses similar imagery in his ads. This is our future these guys are playing with. Apparently, just playing.

Photo courtesy of David Iliff of Wikimedia Commons