Sep 23, 2020 2 min read

Advocates of an innovative means to expand solar energy production while generating cash for farms apparently have forgotten that they are in Pennsylvania.

Weeks after the solar advocates testified at a hearing of the House Consumer Affairs Committee, Republican Sen. Gene Yaw of Lycoming County – the chief legislative guardian of gas interests and chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee – said he would introduce a bill that is a thinly disguised poison pill to kill solar development.

The House bill would provide a state tax credit for residents who invest in solar generation other than at their own homes. The idea is to help farms install solar arrays on barns and in fields where the structures would provide shade for crops that favor it, or for animals. Leslie Elder, Mid-Atlantic regional director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, testified that if the bill passes, 220 solar projects in 40 counties will be ready to proceed. Under leases that already have been negotiated, Elder said, farmers would receive between $3 million and $4 million.

Yaw, a cheerleader for more than $2 billion in state tax credits that have been awarded to businesses for using natural gas produced in Pennsylvania, plans to stifle the use of tax credits to expand solar generation.

His bill would require expensive bonds on solar and wind projects to cover the eventual costs of disposing of solar panels and wind turbines. He claimed similar bonds are required for other types of energy projects, but those bonds cover the potential public costs of pollution that those projects generate. Renewable generation does not produce pollution, and the pollution produced by manufacturing the components for solar panels and turbines is no greater than that created by the production of other energy-producing equipment.

The Legislature should reject Yaw’s bill. If it doesn’t, Gov. Tom Wolf should veto it.