Lobbying Turns Green

David BoazI don ’t mean to keep writing the same article about lobbying and special interests over and over. But the federal government keeps creating more and more opportunities for special interests to hire lobbyists. This weekThe Economist writes,with up to $800bn in clean ‐​energy handouts now up for grabs over the coming decade, …The energy industry as a whole spent nearly $300m last year on lobbying, the most since 2013 (see chart 1). Big oil and electric utilities, which had been reducing their spending on influence ‐​seeking before 2020, haveramped it up again; spending is growing in line with that of the biggest lobbyists, big pharma. Renewables firms went from spending an annual average of around $24m between 2013 and 2020, to $38m in 2021 and $47m in 2022. “We’ve now got an interesting new ecosystem of swamp creatures here,” says the government‐​relations man at a giant renewable ‐​energy company.And what caused this new ecosystem?The reason is the passage last year of theInflation Reduction Act (IRA). The law funnels at least $369bn in direct subsidies and tax credits to decarbonisation ‐​related sectors (see chart 2). It came on the heels of theBipartisan Infrastructure Law, which also shovels billions in subsidies towards clean infrastructure. Some of the provisions offer generous tax credits, with no caps on the amount of spending eligible for the incentives. A mad investment rush, should it materialise, could lead t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs