Ed Royce: “In 1996, the President and the Congress agreed to provide no new money to the Clean Coal Technology Program. Taxpayers…”

“In 1996, the President and the Congress agreed to provide no new money to the Clean Coal Technology Program. Taxpayers are footing the bill for technology to be used by private companies. In my view, government has no business favoring certain companies with tax breaks and subsidies. The free market is there to allocate resources in the most efficient way possible. Federal involvement only serves to distort the marketplace by giving selected businesses special advantages, corporate subsidies, put other businesses that are less politically well connected at a disadvantage. Corporate welfare has lead to the creation of what some have termed the statist businessman who has been converted from capitalist to capital lobbyist. Companies should invest their own money in research and development activities on what they believe are promising technologies, rather than look to the Government for funding. And private industry is much better suited to identify and target technologies that are commercially viable. The best thing government can do to promote economic growth is to get out of the way, get out of the way and let entrepreneurs and the mechanisms of the marketplace determine how the economy's resources will be directed. Private industry can flourish without this corporate welfare. Clean Coal Technology, as it is called, is supposed to help the electric industry, but it is not even interested in the technology.”