The Solar Bill Of Rights
Tired of hearing about green energy, but not seeing it take over the country
? Solar Panels could be easily instituted across the United States, but legislation and lack infrastructure control are slowing the progress of eager Americans ready for clean energy.
Rhone Resch, President and CEO of SEIA, introduced a novel concept, The Solar Bill of Rights. Roy Gayhart, CEO of WholeSolar LLC, commented "Now is the time for a real clean energy agenda to be adopted in the United States. We need a legislation so novel that it serves as a beacon of leadership for the world. The Solar Bill of Rights prioritizes the heart of American freedom in clean energy legislation."
The Solar Bill of Rights, is as follows:
First Amendment: Americans have the right to put solar on their homes or businesses. Today's systems beautify and add value to communities and homes, and yet antiquated rules prevent many homes and businesses from going solar. From restrictive covenants to onerous connection, permitting and inspection fees these rules create fundamental barriers to solar. Utilities should not be allowed to restrict green power with red tape.
Second Amendment: Americans have the right to connect their solar system to the grid with uniform national standards. This is as simple as creating a standard jack for telephones. Can you imagine buying a phone in Nevada and bringing it home to California and finding out it doesn't fit into the wall jack? Other industries don't stand for this and neither should we.
Third Amendment: Consumers have the right to Net Meter and be compensated at the very least with full retail electricity rates. Call this solar's eminent domain "utilities use the power we make, and we expect to be compensated at its actual value. This is not just the cost, but the true value of solar including our security benefits, peak power benefits and environmental benefits" as well as the true price for carbon.
Fourth Amendment: The Solar Power Industry has the right to a fair competitive environment. It's the most basic right there is "equality under the law. Today, solar has anything but. And that's not just an opinion, that's a fact. From 2002 to 2008, federal subsidies for fossil fuels were $72 billion while solar received less than $1 billion. This is completely disconnected with the desires of the American people. Recent independent polling shows that 92% of the public supports greater use of solar. And yet taxpayers are forced to subsidize companies like ExxonMobil, companies that are the richest in the history of the world. It's that simple "and that wrong. Subsidies aren't the only issue of fairness, which leads me to number 5.
Fifth Amendment: We also have the right to equal access to public lands. Oil and natural gas companies are operating on 45 million acres of public lands. Today, solar companies have access to ZERO. America has the best solar resources in the world and we can't harness the full potential of the sun without accessing our sun-baked lands of the West. Of course, there's little point in collecting energy unless there's a means of distributing it.
Sixth Amendment: We have the right to interconnect and build new transmission lines. Here, too, we seek no more than what other industries already have. The next great build out of our transmission lines must connect the vast solar resources in the southwest to the population centers across the United States.
Seventh Amendment: Americans must have the right to buy solar electricity from our utilities. Consumers have no choice but to buy power from utilities. Although recently some utilities have started to listen to the 92 percent of Americans who want them to prioritize a kilowatt of power drawn from the sun over any other energy source. We have a long way to go. Therefore, for any renewable portfolio standard to be effective, at either the federal or state level, it must contain a large carve out for all solar energy technologies.
Eighth Amendment: Consumers have the right, and should expect, the highest ethical treatment from the solar industry. From minimizing our impact on the environment to providing systems that work better than advertized to ensuring that we accurately communicate how incentives work for consumers, our industry must operate at a higher ethical standard than any other. We will not stand for those who cheat, lie and take advantage of the good name of solar energy.
We declare these rights not on behalf of our companies, but on behalf of our customers and our country. We seek no more than the freedom to compete on equal terms and no more than the liberty for consumers to choose the energy source they think best. These rights, like those on which country was founded, are a simple matter of common-sense. In fact, you might even call them "self-evident."
But that doesn't mean they're self-evident in the halls of power, especially when our opponents are pumping as much haze into the energy debate as they are into the environment.
by: Gabe Gayhart
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