Victory For Clean Energy Tax Credits (Sort of)
Today the U.S. Senate voted to pass an amended version of the BILL, H.R. 3221 to include an extension of both the Production Tax Incentive (PTC) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC). The PTC provides extra money for wind power while the ITC helps fund solar installations. So hooray! Now, before you get too drunk off of the legislative lager, this doesn’t mean the ITC and PTC have all green lights. The bill will now have to head back to the House where Democrats will likely, and rightfully, question where the money for these extensions is going to come from.
The amended bill passed with overwhelming 88 to 8. While the House has passed extensions for these renewable energy tax credits several times over the past year, the Senate has failed repeatedly to extend them past their December 2008 expiration dates, often times failing to pass by just one or two votes.
While the Democrats have been adhering to their tough “pay-go” policy of not passing legislation that doesn’t stipulate where its funding comes from, Josh Dorner at Grist points out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems easily passed a $17 billion package for clean energy just last month.
While the Democrats would love to fund these extensions by cutting some of the billions that Big Oil collects from Uncle Sam in the form of tax breaks, this has been the sticking point for Senate Republicans.
The Senate amendment was drafted by Sens. Mary Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.), who had previously introduced their bipartisan Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008 just last week.
So, while this is certainly not the final chapter in the ITC/PTC renewal saga, it does show that there is good will on both sides of the aisle for this issue. Now the two sides just need to figure out how to fund it.
—- –”"While the Democrats have been adhering to their tough “pay-go” policy of not passing legislation that doesn’t stipulate where its funding comes from”"——
Are you serious?
Suddenly the democrats are fiscal conservatives? Does this new “paygo” philosophy extend itself to “earmarks” (Murtha I’m looking at you)
No, sadly this revolutionary “paygo” stipulation is pure political maneuvering. The democrats get a “two-fer”, by coupling the renewable tax credits with the poison pill of axing oil subsidies. They get to paint the repubs as both ‘anti-solar’ and ‘pro big oil’. Just in time for 2008..
It seems the democrats are content with killing renewable tax credits just so they can have another election year issue to pound the repubs with.
It’s cynical. It’s partisan. And oddly enough, your blog post seems to endorse this strategy..
Can you think of no other areas where we could cut funding in order to pay for the renewable credits? If you try really hard, I think you could. But then again, you’d have to give up tha flogging stick you so desperately want to use in 08′.
C’mon dude.
@ Hammer:
Sure, all of this is purely partisan posturing. But, regardless of party, I do think it’s a good idea to lay out where funding should come from when creating new programs.
And why not cut some of the tax incentives big oil enjoy? Or perhaps we could divert some of our “defense” funding and put it into renewable energy? Or maybe if this war in Iraq ever ends we could use some of the money we’re sending over their to fund clean energy here?
Yes, you’re right, there are plenty of places the money could come from. I have yet to hear the Republicans offer any alternatives. And while I don’t believe the Reps are “anti-solar” they certainly are acting “pro-Big Oil.”
[...] The Ensign-Cantwell amendment passed overwhelmingly 88-8, mainly because it didn’t specify where the money for the tax credit extensions will come from. Green2Tech has more: [...]