Your Opinion: Clean energy legislation

Soon it will be Earth Day when we celebrate our planet. Our national government is now on a rampage to reverse President Obama's climate legacy. The reality is that climate change is real and unforgiving.

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization noted that the world is experiencing record warming with the past three years being the hottest recorded, rising carbon-dioxide levels, an alarming drop in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and severe droughts in southern and eastern Africa and Central America.

As Americans, we need to contact our legislators to stop the Trump Administration from implementing this anti-environmental agenda. The current administration believes environmental protection should be left to individual states. If I lived in California or Oregon, I would agree, but not in Missouri.

When President Obama laid out his Clean Power Plan as the United States' part of the Paris agreement, Missouri joined with 25 other states saying we would not honor the plan. We were to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for generating electricity by 30 percent. We who receive our electricity from Ameren still have 80 percent of our electricity fueled by coal.

Now there is a bill, HB340, in the Missouri legislature which will discourage anyone wanting to go to the expense of creating their own clean energy through solar or wind power. The bill is designed to tax people who are using their solar or wind-generated energy. If I have solar panels and have used approximately $150 of energy, Missouri will tax that $150 at a substantial rate. In addition, if I am generating more energy than I need and want to sell the excess to Ameren, it will be accepted, but I will receive nothing in return. T.S.

I tried to read this HB340 which is steeped in legalese, and I may have misunderstood the full intent of the bill, but it appears to me that this is designed to keep Ameren from having to compete with alternative clean energy. I've not been able to find additional information about the bill on the Internet. 

Why would Missouri not want to join the job creation of clean energy?

 

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