At the time of a 2008 attempt to vote on the production tax credit (PTC), the writer Todd Woody noted it was the eighth Republican Senate filibuster to kill the wind PTC.

And, yeah: This month, once again, Senate Republicans prevented an up-or-down vote on extending the PTC, just as they have done for a decade or more. And as it has done each time, killing the PTC (again) will once again cripple U.S. wind power development for the next year.

image via Shutterstock

New industries like solar and wind needs subsidies like the PTC to get established, allowing mass production to bring costs down. That takes decades. Republicans did nothing to prevent support for the fossil industry, which got its first support in the 19th century and which continues to this day. But Republicans and the think tanks that control them advocate wherever they can to prevent the same support for renewable energy.

Like so many wind developers, in anticipation of the PTC possibly going down, Exel announced that it was hesitating on wind plans for 2012.

There is nothing new about this—Republicans have been voting against clean energy before President Obama even arrived in the Senate. But every year, most of the media acts surprised, as if it is something new. Or worse, as if it is right that in a democracy you need 60 votes to pass a bill that Democrats want to vote on.

If you look at some of these previous roll call votes 2007 and 2008, you will notice that these votes “fail” with more than 50 votes yeas, and only 40-some votes nays. As this typical recent cloture vote that prevented a vote to end oil and gas subsidies shows, having over 50 Democrats is just not enough.

By using the cloture vote, which requires 60 senators to agree that they are “ready” to vote, Republicans are able to prevent a vote from being taken on bills that the majority of voters elected a Democratic majority Senate to vote yes on. This has been going on whether there is a Republican-majority House or a Democratic-led House. All legislation can be stopped at the Senate if there are fewer than 60 Democrats. The underhanded tactic of this minority rule is maddening.

Any time 40 Republicans get into the 100-seat Senate, they are able to stymie voting procedure in this way, and control legislation by what is essnetially cheating. And it is not hard to get 40 or more Republicans to prevent legislation in the Senate with their fake “majority,” because even the 10 or so states with just a few hundred-thousand voters, like Wyoming, are allotted two senators.

So, how to overcome this perennial obstacle? I suggest it is time for the international renewable energy industry to work together to start buying Republicans. After all, it only took money to secure these persistent votes against renewable energy.

The international renewable energy industry will simply need to get together and buy themselves some Republicans in the U.S. Congress, the same way the fossil energy industry does. Here are the 2012 oil and gas money purchases of sitting Republicans, an indication of the kind of money the renewable energy industry will need to beat:

Berg, Rick (R-N.D.) $237,450
Rehberg, Denny (R-Mont.) $231,416
Boehner, John (R-Ohio) $207,900
McCarthy, Kevin (R-Calif.) $157,200
Flores, Bill (R-Texas) $144,756
Paul, Ron (R-Texas) $139,937
Pompeo, Mike (R-Kan.) $139,000
Camp, Dave (R-Mich.) $137,500
Upton, Fred (R-Mich.) $124,500
Cantor, Eric (R-Va.) $119,800
Sullivan, John (R-Okla.) $118,200
Fleming, John (R-La.) $117,500
Hensarling, Jeb (R-Texas) $108,050
Gardner, Cory (R-Colo.) $96,250
Barton, Joe (R-Texas) $85,250
Olson, Pete (R-Texas) $83,900
Murphy, Tim (R-Penn.) $83,300
Scalise, Steve (R-La.) $82,400
Boustany, Charles (R-La.) $82,050
Pearce, Steve (R-N.M.) $77,350

(The remaining 222 House Republicans would each cost under $77,300 each, each election cycle.)

Then you’d have to beat these sums for these new House candidates:
Williams, Michael (R-Texas) $191,650
Landry, Jeff (R-La.) $75,434
Lankford, James (R-Okla.) $70,050

Most importantly, you’d have to outspend this total for the top 20 Senate recipients for 2012:

1. McConnell, Mitch (R-Ky.) $264,700
2. Barrasso, John A (R-Wyo.) $232,800
3. Hatch, Orrin G (R-Utah) $225,400
4. Corker, Bob (R-Tenn.) $125,750
5. Heller, Dean (R-Nev.) $122,100
6. Wicker, Roger (R-Miss.) $104,166
7. Brown, Scott (R-Mass.) $93,000
8. Cornyn, John (R-Texas) $81,900
9. Landrieu, Mary L (D-La.) $79,000
10. Inhofe, James M (R-Okla.) $70,850
11. Baucus, Max (D-Mont.) $54,000
12. Lugar, Richard G (R-Ind.) $43,700
13. Vitter, David (R-La.) $43,400
14. Manchin, Joe (D-W.V.) $40,250
15. Rubio, Marco (R-Fla.) $36,750
16. Snowe, Olympia (R-Maine) $36,500
17. Nelson, Ben (D-Neb.) $35,900
18. Udall, Mark (D-Colo.) $30,200
19. Menendez, Robert (D-N.J.) $25,900
20. McCaskill, Claire (D-M0.) $25,208

Of course this is not the full picture. This is just the oil industry. Coal industry funding must be matched too, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as the lobbying arm of the fossil industry.

Because of the Senate cheating on the 60-vote cloture, the most focus should be on repurchasing these following new candidates running for Senate before they get in there. The oil and gas industry has pumped them full already for their 2012 run. The renewable energy industry must meet or beat these “contribution” amounts:

Dewhurst, David H (R-Texas) $415,600
Berg, Rick (R-N.D.) $237,450
Rehberg, Denny (R-Mont.) $231,416
Cruz, Ted (R-Texas) $180,550
Allen, George (R-Va.) $90,300
Jones, Elizabeth Ames (R-Texas) $84,325
Mandel, Josh (R-Ohio) $80,000
Wilson, Heather A (R-N.M.) $69,050
Leppert, Thomas C (R-Texas) $59,150
Lingle, Linda (R-Hawaii) $54,000

image via Shutterstock

Buying all the Republicans—and several Democrats such as new “Democratic” Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—will be a much bigger hit to a nascent industry’s bottom line than it is for the fossil industry, because the fossil industry is currently the richest industry on the planet.

Most Democrats get their funding from the nonprofit environmental groups that are already dedicated to cutting pollution, so you won’t have to spend a penny on them. When they did hold the 60-vote supermajority for several months in 2009 they passed a PTC extension that has shot the U.S. ahead of Germany in wind development for the last three years (China has since moved to the front).

And you can leave Republican Susan Collins off the list. The last remaining clean-energy-supporting senator from Maine, which has more renewable energy than California, Collins has consistently voted with the Democrats for sensible climate legislation. And some heavily wind powered states are finally getting some leverage, as at least their Republican House members in states like 20 percent wind-powered Iowa finally notice the wind industry.

And don’t worry about foreign bribes being illegal. The U.S. Republican-selected Supreme Court has taken care of that already. Under Citizens United, unlimited amounts of any and all corporate funding of congressional races is not only perfectly legal, but is actually encouraged in our elections now.