The writer of a June 13 letter to the editor states that Massachusetts electric rates are 50% higher than other areas of the country and that New York might allow a natural gas pipeline to be built implying that may help reduce these rates. According to a June 14 Wall Street Journal article on the rising electricity rates throughout the country, “higher natural gas prices are partly to blame.” The other reasons are the utility companies’ investment of billions in upgrading their aging infrastructure and the increased electricity demand from artificial intelligence.
The writer also implies that the elimination of EV mandates and subsidies for EVs and rooftop solar that will be eliminated at the end of the year will somehow help reduce electric bills. In the same article mentioned above it states “The power industry also warns that a rollback of the clean energy tax credits offered under former President Joe Biden signature Inflation Reduction Act would push electricity prices higher, too.” As for rolling back EV, solar and other green energy subsidies, a chart in the Wall Street Journal has a headline stating “Global investment in green energy is set to double that of fossil fuels.”
The green energy cutbacks in the U.S. are causing several American green energy startup companies to stop plans to build manufacturing plants in Louisiana, Georgia, New York and other states, halting the creation of thousands of tech jobs. Many of these jobs will move overseas to countries that are more supportive. The Trump administration seems intent in having the U.S. invest in fossil fuels, which are not going away any time soon, but are not the future and will leave this country far behind the rest of the world in energy technology and on the wrong side of the future.
Trump is obsessed with bringing back “manufacturing jobs”, most of which are low-wage sweatshop jobs sewing T-shirts and sneakers and cheap plastic items (cars are mostly made with robots). Not sure about the letter writer but I don’t think aspiring to bring back the sweatshop jobs of the late 1800s and early-mid 1900s makes America great or puts us first.
Bill Lafley
New Salem