Tag Archive: clean energy

The Biden administration should honor Jimmy Carter in its renewable energy efforts

President Jimmy Carter

Last Saturday, The Carter Center released a statement indicating that, after a series of illnesses (including cancer) and hospital stays, 98 year-old former President Jimmy Carter has “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.” The announcement has initiated a lot of reflection and remembrances about Carter’s long list of achievements, from saving a Canadian nuclear reactor from meltdown as a young Navy Lieutenant, to getting Israel and Egypt to sign a historic peace agreement as President, to building houses for Habitat For Humanity well into his nineties as a former President.

However, one achievement by President Carter that may get overlooked was his forward-thinking, early dedication to renewable energy. Perhaps most dramatically, Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof in 1979, well before almost anyone else used such technology. The Carter administration set a goal of delivering 20 percent of U.S. energy from renewable sources by the turn of the century. What happened? In 1986, Ronald Reagan had the White House solar panels taken down and not replaced. And Republicans (along with a few Democrats) have been doing everything they can to stifle renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels ever since. More than 40 years after President Carter set his goals, U.S. renewable energy consumption is only about 12.5 percent of the total (though thankfully it is slowly increasing.)

President Obama’s high-water mark

President Obama at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Nov. 11, 2016.

President Obama at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Nov. 11, 2016.

President Barack Obama is leaving office on a high note. Many people might not remember what it was like when Obama took office in January 2009. The Bush Recession was underway, and America was losing 779,000 jobs per month. Stores were closing. Restaurants were empty. And our treasury was also empty (in fact, trillions in debt) from Bush’s disastrous Iraq War. Obama, with no help from the Republicans, turned things around to the point where he will be turning over a country that, by most objective measures, is doing very well. Let’s take a look at some of those numbers, so that we will have a comparison for the future:

Democratic vs. Republican Presidents Part 2: Energy Policy

Ivanpah solar energy facility, California

Ivanpah solar energy facility, California

(This is the second installment in a series about differences between Democratic and Republican Presidents in areas where they have direct control. See our Democratic vs. Republican Presidents category for the rest.)

In June 1979, Democratic U.S. President Jimmy Carter had 32 solar panels installed on the roof of the White House, for water heating. By 1986, Republican President Ronald Reagan had the panels removed, and also:

gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers.

This see-sawing between Republican and Democratic presidents on energy policy continues today. It’s fair to say that Republican presidents never saw a fossil fuel they didn’t like, while Democratic presidents have made efforts toward conservation and the development and use of clean, renewable energy.