Opinion | Why Texas Republicans Are Targeting Renewable Energy

The world is experiencing an power revolution. Over the previous 15 years or so, enormous technological progress has, in lots of instances, made it cheaper to generate electrical energy from photo voltaic and wind energy than by burning fossil fuels. The Inflation Discount Act — which is, regardless of its title, primarily a local weather invoice — goals to speed up the transition to renewables and likewise to affect as a lot of the financial system as potential; this effort, if it really works rapidly sufficient and is emulated by different international locations, might assist us avert local weather disaster.

Even earlier than the I.R.A. began to take impact, nevertheless, America was experiencing a renewable power increase. And the increase has been led by a stunning place. Right here’s a map exhibiting renewable electrical energy era aside from hydroelectric by state (darker means extra era):

Sure, Texas is within the lead. To be truthful, California has extra solar energy, and numerous geothermal electrical energy, too. However Texas dominates in wind energy. And total California is, even progressives need to admit, a state the place NIMBYism generally appears to slip into BANANA territory — as in “construct completely nothing wherever close to anybody.” That’s why housing is so scarce and costly, and crimson tape has snarled inexperienced power, too. Texas, no matter its flaws (that are many), is a spot the place issues can get constructed, and that has included numerous wind generators.

You may suppose, then, that Texas politicians could be celebrating the renewables increase, which is each good for the state’s financial system and an commercial for the state’s laissez-faire insurance policies.

However no. Republicans within the Texas legislature have turned arduous towards renewable power, with a raft of proposed measures that will subsidize fossil fuels, impose restrictions which may block many renewable power initiatives and perhaps even shut down many present services. The worst of those measures don’t appear to have made it into the newest laws, besides, that laws strongly favors fossil fuels over an business that arguably displays Texas’s power future.

So what’s happening right here? Why do Texas Republicans now see the wind as an enemy? You may suppose that the reply is greed, and that’s absolutely a part of it. However the greater image, I’d argue, is that renewable power has change into a sufferer of the anti-woke thoughts virus.

First, about greed. Sure, Texas is a state the place what huge enterprise desires, huge enterprise will get. And the fossil gas business has an extended historical past of doing what it may possibly to dam local weather motion, not simply by lobbying towards inexperienced power insurance policies but in addition by selling local weather denialism.

But there are a number of causes to doubt whether or not Texas’s flip towards renewables is a straightforward story of company greed. For one factor, renewable power in Texas is already an enormous enterprise itself, having attracted billions in funding and using 1000’s of staff, which ought to act as a counterweight to fossil gas pursuits.

Moreover, numerous Texas funding in inexperienced power is definitely coming from firms with roots in fossil fuels. So even some oil and fuel firms have a monetary stake in permitting the renewable increase to proceed.

Lastly, oil and fuel are traded on world markets. The costs producers obtain, and therefore their income, are decided extra by world occasions like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than by the place Texas will get its electrical energy (though this clearly issues for the homeowners of energy crops).

So I don’t suppose Texas’s rejection of its personal power success is completely, and even primarily, about greed. As a substitute, renewables have been caught up within the tradition wars. In a method, it’s so much like Ron DeSantis’s confrontation with Disney, which seems to be simply loopy from a coverage perspective — why undermine tourism, one of many pillars of Florida’s financial system? However lately it’s usually necessary not to observe the cash.

Proper-wingers like Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis have change into keen on citing the alleged energy of the “woke thoughts virus” to elucidate why main companies are tolerant of and even cater to social liberalism. They should invoke this mysterious contagion to keep away from accepting the apparent clarification: Most Individuals have change into comparatively liberal on social issues — take a look at the transformation of attitudes on same-sex marriage — and companies have been adjusting to their buyer base.

However whereas discuss of the woke thoughts virus manages to be each sinister and foolish, I’d argue that there actually is what we would name an anti-woke thoughts virus — a contagion that spreads not throughout folks however throughout points.

Right here’s the way it works. A big faction of Individuals, which more and more dominates the Republican Get together, hates something it considers woke — which on this faction’s eyes means each any acknowledgment of social injustice and any suggestion that folks ought to make sacrifices, and even settle for delicate inconvenience, within the title of the general public good. So there’s rage towards the concept that racism was and nonetheless is an evil for which society ought to make some amends; there’s additionally rage towards the concept that folks ought to, say, put on masks throughout a pandemic to guard others, or minimize down on actions that hurt the atmosphere.

This rage is considerably comprehensible, if not forgivable. However the bizarre factor is the way in which that it infects attitudes on points that don’t truly contain wokeism however are seen as woke-adjacent.

The now-classic instance is the way in which hostility to masks mandates, which have been primarily about defending others, became extremely partisan opposition to Covid vaccination, which is principally about defending your self. Logically, this carry-over is not sensible; but it surely occurred anyway.

The identical factor, I’d argue, applies to power coverage. At this level, investing in renewable power is solely an excellent enterprise proposition; Texas Republicans have needed to abandon their very own free-market, anti-regulation ideology within the effort to strangle wind and solar energy. However renewable power is one thing environmentalists favor; it’s being promoted by the Biden administration. So within the minds of Texas right-wingers the wind has change into woke, and wind energy has change into one thing to be fought even when it hurts enterprise and prices the state each cash and jobs.

If all this sounds loopy, that’s as a result of it’s. However that’s Texas — and, I worry, a lot of America — in 2023.