Environmental extremists want higher energy prices and believe it to be beneficial regardless of the costs to the poor and other North Carolinians.

A recent letter to the editor in the News & Observer from a representative from the NC. Sierra Club confirms the extremists’ agenda.

From the letter:

Sure, we environmentalists think energy prices should be higher. They should reflect the real costs to us all, not just the costs utility companies use. If prices were higher, we would look to alternate energy sources seriously.

Their desired goal is to increase energy prices to consumers.  They believe somehow government can figure out what the costs should be to capture what they think are the negative costs for using low-cost and reliable sources of energy.  This is an impossible task.  Attempts to quantify such costs are likely to be a cure worse than the disease that they perceive exists.

Further, there’s no evidence that existing taxes and regulations imposed on utilities don’t already capture these “negative costs” nor do they consider the incredible costs associated with alternative energy sources (e.g. wind power takes up a massive amount of land).

This is not unlike President Obama boasting about bankrupting coal-fired power plants because of greenhouse gases.  Getting rid of one of the lowest-priced and most reliable sources of electricity would drive up energy costs.

The now-defunct state Climate Action Plan Advisory Group (CAPAG) was actively looking for ways to drive up energy prices and made recommendations to that effect.  Many of the extremists even wanted to drastically increase gas taxes but they realized that would never fly.

What do the following all have in common: renewable energy mandates, energy efficiency mandates, cap and trade, moratoria on offshore drilling, unnnecessary barriers for low-cost electricity sources, taxes on cars based on how environmentally-friendly they are, greenhouse gas permitting requirements, etc?

They are all supported by environmental extremists and they drive up energy prices.

Who gets hurt?  You and all consumers.  The poor in particular are hit the hardest because a larger share of their budgets go to energy as compared to people in other income brackets.

As you pay higher gas prices and higher electricity prices than you otherwise would, you can thank the environmental extremists for this.  They don’t care who gets hurt as they try and achieve their futile goals.