The renewable energy industry received a massive amount of federal subsidies in 2022 as the Biden Administration continues to double down on its so-called “green” agenda.
According to Just The News, all types of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar, received a collective total of $15.6 billion in federal government handouts in fiscal year 2022, dwarfing the $873 million received by the coal industry and even the $2.3 billion received by the petroleum industry, as detailed in a report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
From 2018 to 2022, the renewable energy industry received an overall total of $69.3 billion, the EIA reports. In the same five-year timespan, the coal industry received just $10.8 billion.
“Energy subsidies are not a necessity for any energy source; they are a way for government to have a hand on the scales in energy production,” said Paige Lambermont, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Government subsidizes less reliable ‘renewable’ energy over more reliable energy. Energy subsidies undermine the electricity market by allowing renewables, namely wind and solar, to masquerade as affordable by offsetting their costs through government spending.”
Such federal subsidies are likely to increase even further following the passage of the controversial Inflation Reduction Act in August of 2022, as the law specifically designates at least $11 billion in order to “build clean, affordable and reliable energy.”
“Those numbers [in the EIA report] were before the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has morphed into a climate bill,” said Dan Kish, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research (IER). “The subsidies in that will dwarf anything that is in these numbers.”
The Democratic Party, and Joe Biden in particular, have made an emphasis on “green” energy one of their top priorities, as they believe that “global warming” is destroying the planet. This push comes despite overwhelming evidence indicating that such forms of energy, particularly wind, are increasingly unreliable compared to traditional fossil fuels.