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As the cost of wind and solar power continues to fall, a new organization is pushing the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature to embrace renewable energy and begin working on policies to address a rapidly changing marketplace.

“Clean energy may very well now be the cheapest source of energy,” Scott Coenen, executive director of the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum, told a handful of lawmakers this week at a briefing at the state Capitol.

Over the past decade, the costs of wind and solar technologies have fallen dramatically.

Even without subsidies, the total cost to build and operate utility-scale wind and solar power plants is now cheaper on average than any other type of plant, even natural gas, according to financial advisory firm Lazard. In some cases it can be less expensive than it is to run an existing coal plant.

Coenen said that’s a challenging reality for some of those on the right, who have railed against government subsidies and mandates that helped get renewables off the ground.

“I spent 10 years arguing against renewables,” Coenen, a former legislative aide and Republican campaign manager, told lawmakers Tuesday. “Those arguments have been true. ... They’re not true anymore.”