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Mesa schedules eclipse of solar energy projects
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Mesa, AZ’s building safety director has effectively outlawed installation of new solar electric or heating systems in his city, due to his decision to completely quit inspections of solar projects in Mesa. While his department has lost half its staff of inspectors in the last year, apparently not even one of his staff of 70 can be reassigned to do at least a trickle of inspections. Without a government issued clearance permit, Salt River Project will not allow any solar electric project to be hooked up to its grid.
Under current Federal Tax law, a thirty percent credit can be taken for qualifying renewable energy projects like solar, wind, geothermal, and fuel cell installations. The credit currently expires after 2016, so Mesa’s homeowners may have seven more years to delay their installations. But due to the exploding Federal budget spending, this and any tax credit or exemption could be eliminated at any time by Congress. Mesa’s policy could be dooming tens of thousands of interested homeowners and businesses from taking advantage of these tax incentives, which could save two or three thousand dollars on the average project.
Mandatory and ever-expanding government regulations increase the costs of all aspects of our lives. Increasing numbers of people are entering poverty in this country because they can’t keep up with the expense of maintaining a middle-class, government approved lifestyle.
Last century, all one needed to build a home was the will and the means, no government inspector was needed or wanted. Nowadays, a dozen or more different city and state inspectors have to sign off on every imaginable aspect of a home. Failing any one of them stops the process until it’s resolved. The same process creates more expensive cars via mandated safety regulations. Under-code cars might cars thousands less, and enable more poor people to own them.
It is time to restore freedom in America, by allowing less costly alternatives to mandatory government regulations to coexist in the marketplace. In this internet age, it would be very easy for a prospective buyer of a home or other product to check online and see how many government codes the product has passed. Thus the buyer could make an informed decision on whether to purchase it. While insurance costs for under-code products would be higher, this insurance too would be voluntary. If we are really interested in being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, this is how we should live.
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