Or you could just give the money back to ratepayers

By Steve Poftak
November 15th, 2007

Tuesday’s Globe had a story on the tug of war going on regarding the Renewable Energy Trust with some legislators seeking to move it out of the quasi-autonomous Mass Technology Collaborative (with its… ahem… own loyalties) and into the Environmental Affairs Secretariat.

The Trust, like many well-meaning programs, suffers from the Ginsu Knife effect (remember – it slices, it dices, but wait, there’s more….). It offers grants, rebates, technical assistance, equity investments, debt financing, and marriage counseling. (OK, I made that last one up.)

The net effect being that its almost impossible to figure out if the program is doing any good. I’m all for clean energy, but taxing our utility bills then shuffling the money off to a quasi-state agency is not the way to do it.