Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, campaigning in Iowa, a top producing wind and biofuels state, sat down for an interview with Iowa Public Radio where he was asked his position on ending energy subsidies.
“If you talk to the producers of wind, there’s been such a dramatic decrease in the cost per watt of production that the tax credit is no longer needed,” Bush said in regard to the production tax credit for wind. “I think it ought to be phased out.”
“Ultimately we need to get to a point where there aren’t winners and losers,” Bush added. “My tax proposal calls for the elimination of the subsidies… The best way to produce the optimum energy mix in this country, I think is to let markets work. The federal government’s role ought to be provide research and development dollars to find the disruptive technologies. It could be that we’re around the corner from some discovery of how to break up cellulose, so that you could have cellulosic ethanol being built, biofuels being produced that would be extraordinarily low cost that wouldn’t put pressure on pricing for food or anything like that. That kind of research and development, when it’s applied with the entrepreneurs of this country, that will be the far best way of doing it, than creating all sorts of rules through the EPA.”