We reviewed the, “Climate Action and Resilience Improvement,” report that was released last week. Kudos to the city of Bowling Green and the people who worked on this report for two years. This was lauded as a volunteer effort, and yet, those who worked on the report were likely collecting their salaries while doing so. So the report is not without a cost, and there is a major deficiency.
Nowhere in the report could we find that the penalty for rooftop solar installations created by the BG Municipal Utilities through the implementation of Rider E being addressed. Rider E has not only squashed any incentive for private investment in rooftop solar, it has also been falsely alleged that those who pay the capital costs out of pocket to install solar, “cost their less affluent neighbors.”
We have studied this assertion and found it to be not only false, but a thinly-veiled attempt to vilify those few residents who have made that investment to reduce their carbon footprint.
As we have researched this matter without a salary, we have increasingly found that not only are all BG residents benefiting from the cost avoidance of individual investment in clean energy, they are also being denied the benefits to take advantage of federal incentives for the necessary clean energy transition to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
The report states, “The critical action is finding ways for the entire community to reduce carbon emissions.” Why this report would not address the ability to do this by encouraging individual investment in rooftop solar and community solar initiatives is a major, perhaps a deliberate, omission for political reasons.
The Prairie State coal-fired power plant contract to build one of the deadliest coal plants in the nation was highlighted, but not the actual costs thus far and the projected future costs for dangerous, uneconomical carbon capture and eventual decommissioning costs.
To be most credible, this report should have an addendum that will address the elephant in the room that the city would obviously rather avoid. We suggest that the paid volunteer hours for this report and the city’s expenses to defend Rider E be spent instead on an unbiased expert report that would address actual costs from bad decisions promoted by AMP and what can be done to mitigate those costs and incentivize residents to invest in clean energy.
Leatra Harper & Steve Jansto
Bowling Green
