Looking for an article that sums up California in just a few words? Try “illegal immigrant solar panels.”
That’s what’s wrong with our ideal state, in a nutshell. We chase “green” dreams, we give people who don’t have the right to be here for free, while we waste our money and destroy the law.
It’s all in one policy: “The Farmworker Housing Component of the Low Income Climate Change Program.”
As Christopher F. Rufo and Austen Hufford of the Manhattan Institute point out, the cap-and-trade program (now called “cap-and-invest”), which adds at least 20 cents to the cost of each gallon of gas in the Golden State, has provided nearly $50 million to the solar panel system since 2019, and eligible immigrants are profiting illegally.
You don’t even need an American ID. A foreigner will do it. Government contractors know that, and have done everything in their power to market the benefits of solar energy to farm workers, legally and otherwise. There are all kinds of conflicts of interest, at every stage of the program.
The only consolation: Like everything else California’s dysfunctional government does, this plan doesn’t really work.
Only 2,000 households signed up, despite the promise of “free” solar panels. This is because some farm workers suspect that the whole thing is a scam. That’s what California’s policies look like to outsiders. You don’t need a degree from UC Berkeley or the DOGE department to know when something looks rotten.
The whole premise is flawed. Solar panels in California will not solve climate change. Our region’s carbon emissions are small compared to those of China and India (unless we let our forests burn).
Workers, on farms and in factories, need cheap and readily available energy. They don’t have the luxury of being able to wait for the sun to rise, or for batteries to charge, or for cold water to heat up.
And it’s sad that tax dollars paid by hard-working Americans and legal immigrants buy people who have entered the country illegally or broken the law by overstaying their technology.
By offering benefits to illegal immigrants, California is ending the statewide law, and increasing the incentives for migrants and smugglers to continue breaching the border.
Add “free solar panels for illegal immigrants” to the list of things California’s next governor needs to change on Day One.
