MS Officials Block Solar Advocates From Speaking At "Roundtable" - Except For The TX Oil Think-Tank Guy, Of Course

Kyle Wallace sat in the audience with his hand raised earlier this month so he could speak during an open discussion at the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s Solar Summit. Wallace, an executive with the New Orleans-based rooftop solar developer, PosiGen, wanted to share information about solar energy with the relatively fresh-faced regulators. All three said earlier in the day they had many questions about how the renewable fuel would fit in in Mississippi, which still gets most of its electricity from fossil fuels.

But after another speaker, Brent Bailey, a former Republican Public Service Commissioner who advocated for clean energy and who now works for a local solar and energy efficiency company spoke, the commissioners cut off comments from that side of the room — abruptly ending the chance for any solar advocate or industry representative to speak. “We want to hear from people who are not selling solar panels,” said De’Keither Stamps, a Democrat and a former state lawmaker who was elected to the commission last year.

Chairman Chris Brown backed him up. “We’re turning into an infomercial,” said Brown, a Republican who also was elected to the three-member PSC last year after serving in the state House of Representatives. Said Wallace: “We were sitting there in the audience thinking, ‘We have answers to these (questions); these are not new questions.’ We want to be able to address them, but we just weren’t provided the opportunity.”

In fact, the agenda for the Aug. 15 meeting included no one from the solar or clean energy industry. Serving in the role as an expert at the summit was a representative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded by the oil and gas industry that is adept at spreading its anti-renewable agenda nationwide.

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https://floodlightnews.org/mississippi-regulators-tell-solar-boosters-sit-down-and-be-quiet/