Governor Honors Corporate Welfare Queens | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This week's "Daily Journal" guest columnist is Dr. Roy Cordato, John Locke Foundation Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar.

    RALEIGH In a recent press release, it was announced that "Governor Pat McCrory ... has proclaimed June as Solar Energy Month in North Carolina." In doing so, the governor claimed that the industry is "growing" and playing an important role "in creating jobs and helping make our state and nation energy independent."

    What the press release avoided telling us is that the industry would all but disappear if it weren't for the tens of millions of dollars in subsidies it extracts from North Carolina's taxpayers and utility ratepayers in collusion with the state's political class. As an industry, solar energy is almost completely dependent on the use of political power for its survival.

    Furthermore, despite press release propaganda, solar power is doing nothing to make either North Carolina or the nation "energy-independent." Nearly all of our electricity comes from domestically produced coal, nuclear, and natural gas. When it comes to electricity generation, North Carolina and the nation already are energy independent -- and it has nothing to do with solar power.

    In reality, solar power could increase our dependency on imports. While the rays of the sun are not "imported," the equipment that is necessary to turn them into electricity is --mostly from China.

    According to the New York Times:

    [T]he West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines, and other gear manufactured in China.

    "Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, 'Made in China,'" said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

    It is a very strange view of energy independence that looks only at the energy source but not the equipment needed to create the electricity.

    And as for job creation, because of all the wealth that is being transferred to the solar industry from the state's economy through taxpayer subsidies, the industry is not creating jobs but, on net, hurting economic growth and costing jobs. Industry-funded studies that show otherwise ignore basic principles of economics and probably couldn't receive a passing grade as a term paper in an Econ 101 class. No industry that is truly a job creator needs to use the force of law to compel customers to buy its product or the taxpayers to subsidize its production simply to survive. These are the signs of a desperate industry, not a healthy one.

    If the governor believes strongly in the viability and real sustainability of North Carolina's solar industry, he should support removing the industry from the state's corporate welfare rolls. This would include abolishing the state's renewable portfolio standard.

    Only after these policies are changed and only if the industry is profitable would it make sense to celebrate solar energy as a real entrepreneurial success story. For now, the industry's primary accomplishment has been to use the state's politicians and political process to pillage North Carolina's citizens. Success in crony capitalism should be despised, not honored with a monthlong celebration.