The Owners Of Wal-Mart Are Backing Campaigns To Kill Rooftop Solar Power

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-owners-of-walmart-are-backing-campaigns-to-kill-rooftop-solar-power-2014-10



The Walton family, owners of Wal-Mart, donated millions of dollars to organizations opposed to government-backed incentives for solar power production, according to a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILRS). And, says the report, the family, by way of a solar panel manufacturer that it controls, supported an Arizona regulation allowing the state's largest utility to impose a fee on households and businesses that install rooftop solar panels.

ILRS provided VICE News exclusive access to its report prior to its publication Thursday.

"We've been struggling with a Wal-Mart economy for many years," Stacy Mitchell of ILRS told VICE News. "The middle class has shrunk and the number of working poor has increased. But one of the real highlights on the horizon is what's happening with rooftop solar, which allows consumers to have an ownership stake in energy production and it's creating a lot of well-paying jobs. That's a future we can't allow corporate interests and the Walton family to hold us back from."

Solar power production in the United States grew 36 percent in 2012, according to the latest report of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. Rooftop solar installations account for much of that growth. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, over 500,000 households and businesses in the United States generate electricity from rooftop solar arrays. Half of all home and business solar installations were installed in just the last two years.



Read more: https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-walmart-owners-backing-campaigns-to-limit-rooftop-solar-power#ixzz3FjqQXYYq

[bigdarryl]

1. I don't know how anyone can still shop there

I stopped two months ago

[liberal N proud]

2. You would think that with the energy bill that WalMart has, they would go solar themselves

You have to wonder what is the motive here?

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. Pure evil.

[WillowTree]

4. I know it's a little off-topic, but I just have to ask.......

Why is the abbreviation for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance ILRS?

[City Lights]

5. Sickening, but not surprising. nt