Tournament:  | Round: 2 | Opponent:  | Judge:
WALL STREET SPECULATION
The financialization of energy turns the power to decide energy decisions over to Wall Street. It disenfranchises the people who would benefit most from critical discussions of an energy-responsible society.
Hildyard et al 12 Nicholas, The Corner House, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012
“Moving to the market,” however, was proposed as a way of ensuring
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start because minimal change is contemplated in financing this “energy security revolution.”
PTCs for large, centralized renewables projects make solar developers dependent on Wall Street who consumes up to half the value of these credits.
Farrell 12 John Farrell is an Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) senior researcher specializing in energy policy developments that best expand the benefits of local ownership and dispersed generation of renewable energy. Energy Self Reliant States, 4-19
A regular tax credit reduces the amount of taxes a business or person pays dollar
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project owners wouldn’t require big tax bills or Wall Street to finance projects.
Depending on third party Wall Street financing leaks community money and jacks up the cost of renewable energy, making it less competitive with traditional electricity
Farrell 10  John, GRIST, How renewable incentives affect project ownership, 12-7
It’s not just the owner who benefits when projects don’t require complex partnerships to get
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impact by a multiplier, whereas local ownership would keep most revenues local.
The financialization of energy is part of a larger attempt by capital to decide life and death. This form of neo-liberalism creates disposable populations and feed’s a disinterest in politics
Giroux 8   * Henry A. McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Social Identities, Vol. 14, No. 5, September 2008, 587-620
Most of these stories place the blame for these crimes on individualized acts of cruelty
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in the hyper-circuits of power that characterize the New Gilded Age.
FOSSIL CAPITALISM
Energy production under fossil capitalism creates redundant populations. For example, coal mining communities become ignored after their profitability is depleted,
Fox 5 Julia Fox University of Oregon“Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia: An Environmental Sacrifice Zone” Leslie King, Deborah McCarthy, 2005. Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action http://books.google.com/books?id=ol2b0nmgGwECanddq
Historically, West Virginia is a state that has been controlled by coal interests.
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this apparent increase in efficiency lie human and ecological costs that are incalculable.
Coal politics creates cycles of poverty – turning both the environment and humans into sacrifice zones
Hedges 12    Chris, American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and war correspondent specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. 7-20, http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98sacrifice-zones%E2%80%99/
There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of
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the part of people who seek personal enrichment to destroy other human beings…
Centralized energy is what makes large-scale factories possible  - creating a critical nexus point for the commodification of work
Hildyard et al 12 Nicholas, The Corner House, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012
Uppercase Energy is an “abstraction which became true in practice.”27 In addition
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, place or context helped mould the belief in infinite economic growth.37
Centralization repeats the authoritarian and capitalist energy past
Ruggero 9  E. Colin,  The New School for Social Research in New York,
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, Radical Green Populism: Climate Change, Social Change and the Power of Everyday Practices, 11-11, http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/e-colin-ruggero-radical-green-populism-climate-change-social-change-and-the-power-of-everyday-p
To provide the variety of goods and services that sustain them, modern societies have
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more immune to the humbling enormity of the issue than is popular discourse.
Corporate rule creates a doomsday economy sacrificing public self-governance in the name of corporate profit – the impact is the end of the planet’s life support systems
REINSBOROUGH 3, Grassroots Organizer and Popular Educator,
(Patrick, worked on a range of issues including forest protection, police brutality, peace in Northern Ireland, indigenous rights, organizing director of the Rainforest Action Network, JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS and PROTEST, Aug, vol 1, # 2, http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/1/de_colonizing/index.html)
Cancer Kills the host. Cancer’s suicidal destiny is a product of its initial perversion
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that slowly starves the many while normalizing over-consumption for the few.
The 1AC represents a new way of framing energy discussions that exposes how energy exclusions under security regimes hide inequality and perpetuate conflicts
Hildyard et al 12 Nicholas, The Corner House, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012
Both the word “energy” and the word “security” have in fact
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about, and organisation for, a democratic, fossil-free future.
Only by STARTING from the perspective of the survival of the commons will we create truly pragmatic politics. Public debate must seize the understanding of “Energy Security” away from corporate interests.
Hildyard et al 12 Nicholas, The Corner House, Larry Lohmann and Sarah Sexton.12 Energy Security For Whom? For What? February 2012
In the bewildering, sometimes frightening, talk about “energy security” that bombards
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“energy security” and the most pragmatic starting point for practical action.
Plan
The United States federal government should exempt customer-generators of solar power from interconnection tariffs, institute federal interconnection standards, and renew the Section 1603 grant for new community and residential solar projects
Solvency
These restrictions disincentivize local generation of energy
Baker-Branstetter 11 (Shannon, “ARTICLE: DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE GENERATION: THE TRIFECTA OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS TO CURB CARBON EMISSIONS, REDUCE POLLUTANTS, AND EMPOWER RATEPAYERS”. Villanova Environmental Law Journal. Shannon Baker-Branstetter serves as policy counsel for Consumers Union and is a member of the California Bar. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University, Master's in Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.) Lexis
C. Actions for Congress¶ Congress 4should institute minimum federal standards for net metering
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the maximum value for excess generation that does not burden other customer classes.
Interconnection tariffs are a key barrier to DG
Baker-Branstetter 11 (Shannon, “ARTICLE: DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE GENERATION: THE TRIFECTA OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS TO CURB CARBON EMISSIONS, REDUCE POLLUTANTS, AND EMPOWER RATEPAYERS”. Villanova Environmental Law Journal. Shannon Baker-Branstetter serves as policy counsel for Consumers Union and is a member of the California Bar. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University, Master's in Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.) Lexis
One reason some states do not provide cash payment for net excess generation may be
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imposed on independent generators to remove any legal gray area for net billing.
Cash grants for residential solar solves new projects and prevents banks from upping the price of energy
Farrell 11 (John, “Democratizing the Electricity System: A Vision for the 21st Century Grid” The New Rules Project, June 2011)
In addition to limiting participation in renewable energy development, the federal tax incentives also
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million of dollars in overpayments of federal tax credits to bankers.10

Distributed generation fights economic colonialism, returning political power and economic benefits to local communities
Farrell 11 (John, “Democratizing the Electricity System: A Vision for the 21st Century Grid” The New Rules Project, June 2011)
The cornerstone of the distributed generation revolution is its potential democratizing influence on the electric
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outweigh the economic colonialism of absentee owners profiting from local renewable energy resources.
The plan is fast-scaling and will build a political constituency supporting more decentralized renewables
Farrell 11 (John, “Democratizing the Electricity System: A Vision for the 21st Century Grid” The New Rules Project, June 2011)
Distributed generation offers a cost-effective and fast-scaling alternative to centralized generation
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fueled generation, helping step away from a carbon-based electricity system.
The US local production movement spills over to the developing world and democratizes and stabilizes the global economy, improving the future of millions of people through clean energy.
Marsden 10 D ISTRIBUTED GENERATION SYSTEMS : A NEW PARADIGM FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY Janet, Member, IEEE, Syracuse School Research Fellow November 15, http://syr.academia.edu/JanetMarsden/Papers/430835/DISTRIBUTED_GENERATION_SYSTEMS_A_NEW_PARADIGM_FOR_SUSTAINABLE_ENERGY
Providing local power for US energy production will drive growth in manufacturing and other industries
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in addition to improving the future of millions of people through clean energy.
Distributed generation creates community-based people’s energy movements, which expand the meaning of democratic participation and revamp institutional structures that have failed to respond to their constituents and be environmentally responsible
Hoffman and Pippert 5 (Steven M. Hoffman, PhD, Professor of Political Science at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Angela High-Pippert, PhD, Director of Women's Studies at the University of St. Thomas, and serves on the ACTC Women's Studies Coordinating Committee, “Community Energy: A Social Architecture for an Alternative Energy Future”, Bulletin of Science Technology and Society 2005 25: 387)
Community-based energy is also seen by many advocates as a major step in
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the vitality of our spiritual life” (1977, 59).4¶
Our form of politics protects PLACE-BASED COMMUNTIES from being controlled by global corporations. Only the plan JOINs FORCES WITH COMMUNTITIES who are building a more equitable global economy
Hess 9 David J. professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University and member of the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment. Localist Movements in a Global Economy, Sustainability, Justice, and Urban Development in the United States
However, it is also possible that participation in localist politics may open the door
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it encourages businesses not to let economic profitability trump social and environmental goals.
Our anti-capitalist demand on the state uniquely strengthens movements against a flawed energy system and empowers others to demand the same.
Yanity 4  Electrical Designer responsible for a variety of energy projects. NANA Pacific, Columbia, Brian, Engineering, International Socialist Organization, Socialism and the Energy Question, 4/27, http://www.upsidedownworld.org/energyquestiontwo.htm
When decisions about energy production and consumption are decided democratically by the majority of people
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only strengthen our argument that the system as a whole is not reformable.

Tournament: CSUF | Round: 1 | Opponent: IOWA DH | Judge: Bankey
The United States federal government should exempt customer-generators of solar power from interconnection tariffs and provide cash grants to nontaxable entities and individuals for distributed generation of solar power in the United States.

New Advantage – Risk Management

Warming is inevitable and creates devastating natural disasters; the cost of inaction is too high

Baker-Branstetter, 2011 (Shannon, “ARTICLE: DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE GENERATION: THE TRIFECTA OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS TO CURB CARBON EMISSIONS, REDUCE POLLUTANTS, AND EMPOWER RATEPAYERS”. Villanova Environmental Law Journal. Shannon Baker-Branstetter serves as policy counsel for Consumers Union and is a member of the California Bar. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University, Master's in Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.) Lexis. 

II. "Business as Usual" Will … business as usual to continue. 30

Natural disasters will cause long term blackouts

Bruch 11 Michael Bruch, Michael Bruch of Allianz Risk Consulting, Michael Kuhn, Martin Weymann (Swiss Re), Gerhard Schmid (Munich Re) Power Blackout Risks Risk Management Options Emerging Risk Initiative – Position Paper November 2011 http://www.agcs.allianz.com/assets/PDFs/Special%20and%20stand-alone%20articles/Power_Blackout_Risks.pdf

Blackouts during the last … and economy might be significant.

Large cascading outages cause mass suffering and death from extreme temperatures over several weeks

NAS 12 (“Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System” Committee on Enhancing the Robustness and Resilience of Future Electrical Transmission and Distribution in the United States to Terrorist Attack, National Academy of Sciences, October 2012) (1)

A terrorist attack on the … extended exposure¶ to extreme cold.ˆ

Small grid failure brings down the entire system – impact is chemical plant explosions, worse than atom bomb 

Latynina 3 World Press Review (VOL. 50, No. 11) www.worldpress.org/Americas/1579.cfm

The scariest thing about the … outage of the entire grid system. 

Grid shutdown also causes nuclear meltdowns.

Caldicott 5 (Helen, president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, “Nuclear-war threat still very real” Interview with Martin Sieff, 18 May 2005, lexis)

This would of course … very easy to do. 

Meltdowns cause mass death and outweigh nuclear weapons

Lendman, 2011 (Stephen, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization, 03/ 13, “Nuclear Meltdown in Japan,”, The People’s Voice http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclear-meltdown-in-japan, accessed 8-2-12)

Reuters said the 1995 …, literally, an apocalyptic event.

Distributed renewable generation avoids cascading failures and ensures power for critical infrastructure

Andres and Loudermilk 12  Richard B. Andres, PhD, is Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and Senior Fellow and Chair of the Energy and Environmental Security Policy Program with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Micah J. Loudermilk is Senior Research Associate for the Energy and Environmental Security Policy Program with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, contracted through ASE, Inc. “National Security and Distributed Power Generation” No. 24, Sep 2012 http://livebettermagazine.com/eng/magazine/article_detail.lasso?id=352and-session=user_pref:42F9487313cd739475NXKWN2440B

TODAY, PEOPLE OF THE UNITED … grids after a large scale failure.

Plan solves – islanding supports critical services

CEE 12 Clean Energy Exchange “Smart Grid sustains social services during blackout” july 9 http://www.thecleanenergyexchange.org/posts/view/smartgrid-sustains-social-services-during-blackout/6fkfnh0tce/

Keeping the lights on' can … ensure the smaller grid's reliability.

Resilience and adaptation through localist approaches is the most immediate way to mitigate the effects of climate change

O’Brien et al 9 (Karen O'Brien, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Bronwyn Hayward, 2School of Political Science and Communication, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and Fikret Berkes, University of Manitoba, Canada Climate Change and Social Contracts, “Rethinking Social Contracts: Building Resilience in a Changing Climate”, Ecology and Society)

The creation of governance systems with multilevel… without¶ much wider dialog, debate, and political struggle.

New Solvency card

Federal rule-making solves state government race to the bottom, avoids carbon lobbies and resolves federalism. 

Pursley and Wiseman 11  -- Garrick B. Assistant Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law. Hannah J. Assistant Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law. Emory Law Journal, 60 Emory L.J. 877

The discussion thus far … governments from racing to the bottom