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“The government should not be picking winners and losers in the marketplace!” That is bedrock conservative, Republican, right-wing, MAGA doctrine and has been for decades. The phrase was used constantly to oppose clean energy initiatives by Democrats such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided federal incentives for electric vehicles and solar power. Those incentives made Republicans’ blood boil as they huffed and puffed about government overreach and the many sins of progressive government that put people first instead of corporations.
How then to interpret the latest move from this failed administration that will shovel $700 million taxpayer dollars to boost coal-powered thermal generation of electricity in the US? According to Latitude Media, $185 million will come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed in 2021 that appropriated money for carbon capture and storage projects.
That funding will help build two new large coal power plants — the first new coal facilities in the US since 2013. It will also pay to restart a 200 MW coal-powered generating plant in Maryland that was shuttered by AES in 2023. At the time, the Independent Market Monitor for PJM said that facility was “not just uneconomic, but extraordinarily uneconomic.”
