Senator John Hoeven Has A Funny Definition Of “Market Driven” Energy

North Dakota Senator John Hoeven did an interview with the Wall Street Journal from the Republican National Convention.  The interview was on the subject of the GOP’s national platform (Hoeven was on the committee tasked with developing that platform), and toward the end Hoeven was asked whether his party supports green energy.

“Yes,” said Hoeven in reply, “but it’s got to be a market-based approach.”

Those are interesting comments from Senator Hoeven given that he supports policies that are anything but a “market based approach” to green energy. Last year Senator Hoeven voted to keep in place production subsidies for ethanol, and earlier this year he was advocating for bailouts of an ethanol plant here in North Dakota that has teetered on the edge of failure for decades now. Hoeven also co-sponsored legislation that would not only keep in place a federal mandate for ethanol use, but would protect the ethanol industry from product liability lawsuits.

In the area of wind energy, Hoeven was one of six Senators who signed a letter in March demanding the perpetuation of subsidies for wind power production. In that letter Hoeven and his co-signers again emphasized a “market based approach,” but the Wall Street Journal called them out (rightly, I might add) for promoting corporate welfare.

Put simply, I’m not sure Hoeven actually knows what “market based” means. “Market based” means that decisions in industry are driven by consumer choices not government policy. Products like ethanol and wind power are only on the market in so far as the government subsidizes their production and mandates their use.

That is the exact opposite of “market driven.”

Tags: ethanol, green energy, John Hoeven, North Dakota News, subsidies, wind power