GOP undercuts green energy

The Republican tax overhaul is a boldface attack on the future of our environment.

It puts our clean energy future at risk by protecting big polluters while reducing or eliminating incentives for clean energy and clean vehicles.

The changes including eliminating tax credits for electric vehicles, slashing tax credits for clean energy projects by a third, and ending the tax credit for commercial solar investment. Unchanged will be the $15 billion in tax subsidies that the fossil industry receives.

Producers of wind, solar, geothermal and other types of renewable energy currently benefit from a tax credit scheduled to be phased out in 2020.

Reducing the value of tax credits for renewable energy while leaving those of the fossil fuel industry unchanged shows that the GOP is contradicting one of its guiding principles of not artificially manipulating market forces.

The uncertainty the tax plan has created for potential investors in renewable energies is already damaging our transition to a clean-power future.

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry has never had to endure the same unease about its tax structure.

Clean energy is clearly where the economy is headed; the Republican tax overhaul is simply trying to delay what is both inevitable and desirable for our environment and way of living.