Renewables will benefit from walking on their own

President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” nixed a host of green energy handouts created during the Biden administration. In response, advocates for renewables have adopted a Chicken Little posture. But eliminating the subsidies will benefit the industry.

Green tax handouts were “so generous that there wasn’t as much pressure to minimize costs,” Atin Jain, an analyst at BloombergNEF, told The Wall Street Journal last week. Without the government money, companies will be forced to become more efficient.

Indeed, taxpayer largess can also stifle creativity and innovation. Like a sugar high, the handouts feel good but create problems over time. Wind and solar producers have been the recipients of federal and state money for decades in an effort to “encourage” growth. At some point, they