The following is a guest essay from Josh Dorner, deputy press secretary of the Sierra Club.
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Greens were heartbroken last year when a package of tax incentives for clean energy and renewables fell short in a 59-40 vote during December's energy bill battle royale in the Senate. Greens, renewables folks, and the Democratic leadership have been looking for a clear path forward ever since. As these particular incentives actually do stimulate the economy, attaching them to the economic stimulus package now being debated is attractive both on the merits (more on that below) and for political reasons.
First, some stimulus package is all but guaranteed to pass and be signed by the President (an increasingly rare outcome for legislation these days). As the Democrats have been pretty strict about offsetting new spending with cuts somewhere else, attaching green initiatives to this package sidesteps the issue of the finding the money to pay for them.
(For reasons unclear to anyone of sound mind, taking the money out of Big Oil's hide bedeviled the energy bill's clean energy tax package. Only in Washington could the idea of shifting tax breaks and subsidies away from Big Oil toward renewables -- even as ExxonMobil reports a record $41 billion profit -- not be a shoo-in.)
After the economic stimulus package negotiated between the White House and House leadership failed to include the energy incentives, the fight moved to the Senate. Sen. Maria Cantwell deserves major kudos for leading the charge. Though Senator Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, initially expressed skepticism about including the incentives in the stimulus package, Cantwell marshaled the support of nearly 40 other Senators -- including key Republicans.
In addition to the support she pulled together, key players like Bingaman, Domenici, and Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Finance Committee, also weighed in favorably. Support became so strong that instead of offering the incentives as an amendment, a bipartisan deal was struck to simply incorporate them into the package prior to Wednesday's markup. In the end, it was approved by the Finance Committee 14-7.
The $5.7 billion package includes quite a few goodies:
- 1-year extension of the Production Tax Credit -- $3 billion
- Solar, fuel cell, and microturbine investment credits -- $130 million
- Clean Renewable Energy Bonds -- $400 million
- High-efficiency appliance credits -- $323 million
- Energy efficiency credits for new homes -- $61 million
- Energy efficiency credits for home retrofits -- $1.5 billion
- Energy efficiency credits for commercial buildings -- $153 million
Attaching these incentives to the stimulus package makes perfect sense. They are timely, targeted, and temporary.
Second, the renewables industry is running white hot right now and is one of the beacons of hope in these times of growing economic darkness. The industry already employs tens of thousands in the areas of research, production, and construction/installation. And its future looks even brighter. A study by the Blue-Green Alliance shows that a strong investment in renewables could create over 820,000 new jobs at thousands of existing firms across the country.
The results on the ground show that this isn't some think-tank pipedream pushed by us greens. Gamesa of Spain now has three factories in Pennsylvania. Its first, in Fairless Hills (an area decimated by the collapse of the steel industry), employs over 500 people in good-paying union jobs. Newton, Iowa, a typical Midwestern small town, lost 1,800 jobs in December when Maytag pulled up stakes and closed its corporate HQ and factory after being bought by a competitor. By June of this year, a factory making wind turbine blades will open in the town, replacing about 500 of the lost jobs. This is just one of a half-dozen such projects in Iowa alone.
Finally, The New York Times reports today on California's solar boom, highlighting one solar installer, SolarCity, that has expanded to 215 workers since its founding in 2006. Or SunPower, a manufacturer, whose sales tripled from between 2006 and last year, will probably hit $1 billion this year, and whose stock shot up 251 percent last year -- more than any other Silicon Valley company.
On economic grounds alone -- to say nothing of the importance of scaling up the production of clean energy posthaste -- it would be criminal to suffocate the industry in the cradle just as it's hitting its stride. Yet Congress has had the shortsightedness to do so three times in recent years -- allowing the credits to lapse in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Instead of the surges in installed wind capacity we've come to expect (5200 new megawatts in 2007), those years saw anemic growth. The drop in growth from the previous year ranged from 77% to 93% during the lapsed years.
Letting these credits expire will not only prevent future growth in jobs and investments and put our march toward a clean energy future on hold, but the American Wind Energy Association estimates it would throw some 75,000 people of work in the wind industry alone. With the economy already shedding jobs, this is the last thing we need.
The future of the Senate version of the stimulus package looks a bit rocky. By including extensions of unemployment benefits and changing the structure of the underlying tax rebates, Senate Democrats appear to have ginned up the Republican filibuster machine (not that it sees much downtime these days). A final vote looks almost certain to be delayed until Wednesday, when Senators Clinton and Obama can take a brief respite from the campaign trail to bolster the Democrats in their march toward 60 votes.
Regardless of whether we get to 60 on a package with the energy incentives -- and I very much hope that we do, it survives conference negotiations, and is signed by the president -- we've already scored a huge victory for clean energy. We now have 40+ Senators on record as supporting these clean energy incentives, including Republicans like Dole, Allard, Sununu, Thune, Brownback, and Roberts. The House and Senate leadership have vowed to get 'er done this year on renewables, so even if this particular energy package doesn't make it over the finish line, we now have some serious ammunition for the next round.
Mark Warner (D-Va.)
Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)
Carl Levin (D-Mich.) [UPDATED]
Comments
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Tasermons Partner Posted 3:40 am
02 Feb 2008
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Pompey Road Posted 4:09 am
02 Feb 2008
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 4:21 am
02 Feb 2008
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John former Marine Posted 4:25 am
02 Feb 2008
I can guarantee you all right this moment that there are probably more than a dozen Pentagon projects in the pipeline right now that have been given more than 5.7 billion just for R&D. We need a major change in priorities people.
Where do you think we could save a few bucks in the federal budget so that we could afford a REAL stimulus package? Hmmmm....we've got a carrier group 365 days a year in the Persian Gulf that must cost us like 30 billion a year. That 30 billion dollar expense is essentially an "externalized" expense that Shell/Exxon and all the other oil companies would have to pay for if they hired their own mercenary armies to guard their oil pipelines.
No, the taxpayers are paying hundreds of times more FOR global warming than they are to combat global warming. So what can we do about it? I'm searching for some kind of secular word for "crusade" or "jihad". But we need to have that kind of mentality...and I think it has to start by tossing off the yokes and getting rid of our two Party! system.
Shu pas a vende.
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ids Posted 6:24 am
02 Feb 2008
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2wheeler Posted 6:54 am
02 Feb 2008
Now this supposedly generous prospect of 1/8 that amount nationwide to jump start clean renewable energy. Sorry I am entirely underwhelmed. How can our senators think this is anything but a token gesture.
The whole stimulus package concept aside from the green energy investment (which would better be done based on a carbon tax rather than public debt increase) is a joke. Run up our national debt more to keep this stupid overconsumption going. The savvy advice to the struggling middle class is to save any rebate money not spend it-- since the employment and health care safety net is frayed if not broken. Only fools will spend the money and if it is not used to pay utility bills, it will be on imported junk.
At this time the meaningful state incentives for renewable energy investments are unevenly distributed; mine has zero other than net metering availability. Coal and nuclear dominate my local grid options. How we need a "change" around here.
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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Pompey Road Posted 7:17 am
02 Feb 2008
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pompey Road Posted 7:21 am
02 Feb 2008
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:16 am
04 Feb 2008
My portfolio is heavily invested in the "Green" sector especially the startups in alternative energy and nanotech. There are stocks that are freely available in which even the smallest investor can fund alternatives. CMGI is one of my favorites because they invest in a lot of other start ups.
5.7B is a drop in the bucket. I would prefer that Government continue to fund the more groundbreaking research, rather than grandstanding after the race is over (Green won) and trying to glom their names onto a horse that already reached the finish line (that would be you, Senator Cantwell).
Restore the Kuomintang!
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John former Marine Posted 9:29 am
06 Feb 2008
Shu pas a vende.
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