Federal government in the way of state renewable energy targets

The Andrews Government has written to the Federal Minister for Energy Ian Macfarlane to remove section 7c of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, which prevents state governments from having their own legislated renewable energy targets.

Environment Victoria CEO Mark Wakeham said today:

“We are extremely encouraged that the state government wants to reintroduce a state renewable energy target in the absence of federal government leadership on the issue.”

“The Abbott Government clearly wants to do nothing to support renewable energy and has broken its pre-election promise to maintain a 41,000 gigawatt-hour Renewable Energy Target. If the federal government can’t do anything useful then it needs to get out of the way of state governments that want to take action on climate change and want regional investment and jobs.”

“Victoria has over 2300 megawatts of approved wind energy projects that are not being built as a result of the federal government’s never-ending review of the Renewable Energy Target. A state-based target would accelerate regional investment and the clean-up of Victoria’s highly polluting energy supply.”