A full 10 years after the Great Recession, states are finally seeing their balance sheets return back to normal. But the storm clouds are gathering again as dozens of cities announce expensive, impractical “zero carbon” plans that would drain city coffers and force state taxpayers to foot the bill for a few residents’ misguided “green” preferences. Instead of funding green boondoggles, cities, and states should keep revenues growing by letting entrepreneurs innovate and provide useful services to residents.
The expanding reach of the green chicanery is enveloping cities of all sizes and has even caused some pundits to lose count of the localities trumpeting faux-ecology at any cost. If renewable zealots get their way across the country, costs would be astronomical. According to a study by a team of Stanford engineers, a national grid running on only “green” sources would cost America $7 trillion by 2030.
New York City leaders are on a mission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. Grist reports that Los Angeles is “building a zero-carbon electricity grid with the goal of reaching an 80% renewable energy supply by 2036.”
Even smaller cities such as Ithaca, N.Y., are considering embracing their own “Green New Deals.” Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick recently released a plan that would make the city carbon-neutral (read: no cow farts) by 2030. City leaders evidently think that their “bold” plans are all that stand between the world and environmental catastrophe, but there’s no evidence that existing low-carbon technologies are better for Mother Nature than conventional energy sources.
Solar panels, for instance, are very difficult to recycle and contain harmful substances such as cadmium and lead that often wind up in water supplies. Wind turbine production is particularly toxic, and the people that bear the brunt are poor Chinese laborers with little recourse or limited access to healthcare. Based on estimates reported by the U.S. military, mining the massive amount of minerals required to produce wind turbine generators produces a ton of radioactive waste. The Institute for Energy Research found in 2013 that, “the U.S. wind industry may well have created more radioactive waste last year than our entire nuclear industry produced in spent fuel.”
The cost of ramping up production of these technologies extends well beyond the environment. Many medium-to-large cities still have fragile finances after nearly a decade of economic growth. And, cutting back on carbon would mean re-upping on red ink.
One popular way for cities to try to “go green” is to electrify their transportation fleets. For example, San Francisco and Seattle have pledged to transition to an all-electric bus fleet over the next two decades. But, according to Reuters, “A typical 40-foot electric bus costs around $750,000, compared with about $435,000 for a diesel bus.” And if buses need to be charged every 60 miles or so (as Los Angeles’ preliminary experience with electric buses seems to show), the resulting disruption to the fleet may require cities to have more buses than they would otherwise need. Total costs for cities “going green” are bound to be substantial. Los Angeles’ plan mysteriously doesn’t include cost estimates, but the massive infrastructure changes required (on top of fleet procurement) will likely cost tens of billions of dollars in the next couple of decades. In New York City, government spending to curb emissions over the next decade will cost $14 billion. Families will see higher taxes, as electricity costs skyrocket and availability wanes.
When these expenses add up, cities will inevitably ask states to come to the rescue. But according to Pew Charitable Trusts, states are already “squeezed by higher health care costs and unfunded pension liabilities.” Green technology and associated tax breaks, which mainly benefit wealthy residents, will come at the expense of rainy-day funds and pension paydowns if overzealous city officials get their way. Already, fiscal pressures have led to states ignoring basic functions like park maintenance (a more “green” use of taxpayer dollars than propping up solar panels and electric buses).
Citizens across the country need to make sure that these harebrained ideas don’t make it out of city hall. Consumers and taxpayers deserve a break from unreliable, bank-breaking schemes for a change.
Ross Marchand is the director of policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
Correction: A previous version of this piece cited research that it said was published by the Pew Research Center. The research was actually published by Pew Charitable Trusts.
