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ENB Pub Note: This article is from David Blackmon’s Substack. We highly recommend subscribing and checking out his work on the Daily Caller, Forbes, and his podcasts, the Energy Realities and Energy Impacts. I will cover this story on tomorrow’s Energy News Beat daily show. One side note, we are very grateful for all of the viewers and readers on the Energy News Beat podcast and the Energy News Beat Substack. If the mainstream media did their job, we would be out of a job. I have several new series in Energy and AI rolling out and they will be a lot of fun. New sponsors, content and things rolling.
This is not a story I enjoy writing about since I’ve held some respect for Wall Street Journal writer Jennifer Hiller, who did some fine work covering the early days of the Eagle Ford Shale development for the San Antonio Express News back in the day. Sadly, today’s piece at the WSJ is just more pro-intermittent energy propaganda from a publication that appears to have plopped fully into the tank these days.
The propagandistic nature of the story starts with the headline and extends right through to its final paragraph, a feat not easy to achieve for a piece that looks to be around 1500 words in length.
The headline – “Clean Energy Is Under Attack Even Where It’s Booming,” kicks things off by implying that any effort to reduce the financially ruinous billions in subsidy dollars for wind, solar, and 3-hour cycle time batteries is somehow a nefarious act.
Amazingly, things only go downhill from there. Have a gander at the “Key Points” section that follows next:
Key Points
What’s This?
- GOP lawmakers are targeting clean-energy tax credits to fund President Trump’s tax-and-spending bill.
- States such as Texas and Arizona consider tougher rules for renewable projects, which might deter investment in the sector.
- Proposed changes could significantly raise electricity prices for homes and businesses in several states between 2026 and 2032.
[End]
Oh, it’s those nasty “GOP lawmakers” who are “targeting” the “clean-energy” credits to help fund the Bad Orange Man’s “tax-and-spending bill.” I suppose we should count our blessings Hiller didn’t accuse the Republicans of “pouncing,” the favored conservative-targeting epithet used in propaganda pieces such as this. She might have had to overrule an editor on that one.
But it’s the last bullet that is especially objectionable – “Proposed changes could significantly raise electricity prices for homes and businesses in several states between 2026 and 2032.”
Now, a rational person might ask what the basis is for such an obviously false assertion? Is there any real world experience to indicate this would be the outcome? Hell, no. Of course not. The WSJ bases that prominently displayed assertion on nothing but a “study” conducted by a highly biased source.
Even worse, you have to the 14th paragraph in the story to find even that thin gruel:
A repeal of the IRA would raise electricity prices on average by more than 10% for residential and business customers in states including Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey and North Carolina between 2026 and 2032. Natural-gas prices would increase, too. That is according to a study by economic-consulting firm NERA that was released by trade group Clean Energy Buyers Association.
So, what is this “Clean Energy Buyers Association,” you ask? Here is the first message one sees at the CEBA home page:
CEBA activates energy buyers and partners to advance low-cost, reliable, carbon emissions-free global electricity systems.
Oh. It’s an activist group. Great.
As if that weren’t bad enough, that 14th paragraph comes only after Hiller had set the stage with other bits of information. First, there is this unchallenged quote from the head of a weather-dependent energy trade association:
“The practical effect is an abrupt repeal of these incentives that translates into significant tax hikes that are going to freeze investment,” said Jason Grumet, chief executive of American Clean Power.
Again, that quote – in Paragraph 8 of the story – is unchallenged by any corresponding quote from a proponent of the federal bill.
And then there’s this bit of boosterism from paragraphs 2 and 3:
Tax credits for clean-electricity generation and manufacturing are set to vanish under a plan proposed last week by congressional Republicans. Meanwhile, lawmakers in states such as Texas and Arizona—home to some of the country’s biggest renewable-energy projects—are considering clamping down with tougher permitting and rules.
The shifting political landscape threatens to slow a booming business. Developers have built $145 billion in solar, wind and battery-storage projects since expanded federal tax credits were approved in 2022, while manufacturers have invested $73 billion in 94 factories that are now operating, according to the industry group American Clean Power.
[End]
Again, none of these numbers are challenged in any way by anyone anywhere in this very long feature story.
To be clear, I have nothing against Jennifer Hiller and really don’t have a problem with a booster piece like this one being published by the Wall Street Journal. My problem with it all is the pretense that this is somehow a “news” story that belongs in the “news” area of the publication.
This is clearly an opinion piece that belongs in the Journal’s increasingly useless op/ed section. It’s also a piece we might have expected to see pop up in the New York Times or Washington Post just a few short years ago. Sadly, it’s the type of one-sided propaganda that has become the daily fare at what used to be a pretty solid publication.
Just one more sign – as if we needed another one – that the legacy media is on its death’s bed.
That is all.
Source: The David Blackmon’s Substack “Energy Transition Absurdities”
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