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The same thing our politics around integrated. we don t have a government or democracy to bring those two policy strands together. part is the political power of the fossil fuels industry. between 1998 and 2012 the combined spending disclosed lobbying spending of the oil and gas industry and electric utility industry 3.5 billion dollars. pretty much top of the chart. they have a blocking position in congress. even when you had a democratic house in 2006 and a democratic presidency in 2008, we couldn t get a price on carbon enacted, even a he relatively modest one. we had a recession. there were extenuating circumstances, but people understand that the politics of putting a price on carbon-heavy fue fuels, which is the easiest way to integrate climate energy policy, is pretty much dead in the congress. even now you don t hear the ....
Renewable energy tax credit. continuity and the availability of the renewable tax credit ensured steady growth in wind power. conversely in 1999, 2001 and 2003 wrecked havoc in the years that followed. the faite the clean energy lies in the hands of lawmakers which is a scary place to be. we have the executive director of the solar electric life fund, and vice president of the development and renewable energy systems america and a leading developer of wind projects and a next generation project fellow at the center for international security and law at the university of texas austin. wow. and dave roberts staff writer on energy politics. he s back at the table. let s start with the subsidy issues. with renewable and olind dra is is an iconic thing like these ....
Fossil fuel extraction, and that is as america begins to april saudi arabia s productive capacity it closely resembles politics. they talk about the resource curse and the fact that countries tend to be developmental and governance basket cases. if you think that sounds foreign looshgs at the politics in places like west texas and west virginia. the promise of energy independence is a kind of liberation. it is a false promise. if history or a look across the globe tells us anything it s that the extremely lucrative industry of extracting carbon fuel offers all the actual freedom of the devil s handshake. how we escape it after this. [ male announcer ] it s that time of year again. time for citi price rewind. because your daughter really wants that pink castle thing. and you really don t want to pay more than you have to. only citi price rewind automatically searches for the lowest price. ....
Is, we only worry about ten states invested in oil and fwas production. somes back to the economics as well. i look at my home state of pennsylvania where we had the early stages of huge boom of marcellus shale. hundreds of wells deployed. some companies are down to a couple wells. why? because the price has plummeted. the reason it s relevant to the politics is if this is a boom and bust, then those politics that get really engrained when a big part of the state s economics depend on that industry, maybe that doesn t take hold. that s where i think it s interesting in terms of end use industries, if you can see them come in, you have a different equation with that same resource. i want to talk about the price that has happened, because that s the background for all of this. this is what consumers tend to care about and voters when we talk about price of the pump and the people filling up on cable news. my sense is that the price of energy in some ways is too low at a certain level ....
Recession where the jobs narrative overtook the climate narrative. but the lesson is that there are oil companies, big oil companies in the coalition that was working to pass that carbon price. the reason is they have a great business. it s incredibly durable and incredibly profitable. what they want is price certainty. they want to be able to plan, and they re willing to accept a carbon price, some of them, if they have to if it s made clear that it s inevitable politically because they can still run a great business and still believe in the viability of the oil and gas business. they provide a different story in public, but in private they re planning for this price. so the politics we see these politics as impossible and captured by lobbyists and frozen. the reality is in 2009 we as a country were that close to doing it. we re going to be that close again. we have to here s the deeper question, right? i think this structures our conversation about fracking as well, which i ....