Green folly

Your Jan. 3 editorial concerning the Green New Deal is exactly right (“Dems Green New Deal an economic nightmare”). It would destroy our economy, and the technology is a pipe dream because at this point you can’t store enough solar and wind energy for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

That said, I almost wish it would pass just so I could have the pleasure of watching the progressive proponents go apoplectic when it fails by their own doing. They will find that the very environmental regulations they have gleefully used for the past 30 years to stop coal and nuclear plants will be turned on them with a vengeance by neighbors who oppose solar plants and wind farms.

Remember Cape Wind, the Obama administration’s darling wind energy project off the coast of Massachusetts? It was squelched in a 10-year battle with litigious environmentalists including, of all people, Sen. Ted Kennedy. In our own backyard, the Crescent Peak wind energy project near Searchlight was also recently killed thanks to opposition from environmental activists.

Should the Green New Dealers try to build multiple solar and wind projects across America, they’ll see them delayed and blocked by endless litigation. Then they’ll have two choices if they want to ban fossil fuel-powered electricity: 1) repeal the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and others, or 2) embrace nuclear power.

I can’t see either of those happening.

In the unlikely event their absurd plan passes, proponents of the Green New Deal will be hoisted by their own petard. I’d buy a ticket to see that. The Opinion page guide to tweets and responses