WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental attorney, told PJM that the oil, gas, and coal industries are “homicidal” and wouldn’t survive in a free market economy without subsidies.
“Oil and coal and gas cannot compete in a free market economy — they require huge subsidies and they require a lot of government. It’s a massive government intervention to try to make them work. Solar and wind today are so cheap,” Kennedy said before getting arrested at Jane Fonda’s latest “Fire Drill Friday” climate action protest on Capitol Hill.
“The strategy of the industry has been to subvert democracy, to corrupt public officials to capture agencies. And when democracy is subverted, ,the only option left is civil disobedience,” he added.
Kennedy said green energy shouldn’t receive any federal subsidies.
“No, they don’t need any subsidies. Coal and oil get $5.2 trillion in subsidies every year, according to the IMF so the total subsidies of wind and solar throughout history are a tiny, tiny fraction of that. I don’t believe in any subsidies. I think we ought to have free-market capitalism,” Kennedy said. “If we can get rid of the subsidies of coal and oil, that industry will disappear overnight.”
Kennedy compared the power of the U.S. fossil fuel industry to the Civil War era.
“We’re transitioning to a new energy economy and that’s exactly what happened in the Civil War. We went from the economy of free human labor to the Industrial Revolution and the slave owners fought it and the incumbents today are doing the same thing — they’re willing to tear the country apart and they’re homicidal and they are trying to manipulate the government to keep their form of energy,” he said.
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