I’ve been surfing the net all morning trying to catch up on the Energy Bill debate. It’s reminded me of one thing: Congress is a muddy place.
Approval ratings for these people are down around 20%. If you visit on the wrong day, you might catch senators fillibustering popular tax breaks for energy efficiency or flip-flopping and forking over $10 billion to the coal industry. Even our beloved Speaker Pelosi, who rallied the crowd with chants of “80 by 50″ and “we want more” at Power Shift has since gotten her hands dirty along with Senator Reid by plucking clean energy tax credits from the Energy Bill. But, before I suck all the hope out of you and send you screaming for plane tickets to Denmark, there is a bit of good news.
As usual, it all starts with the youngsters. After seeing the compromise House and Senate Energy Bill heading for Yucca Mountain, 19 freshmen lawmakers wrote a letter to Pelosi using football references in an attempt to put the 15% by 2020 Renewable Energy Standard and the 35 mpg fuel economy increase by 2020 “over the goal line”. Sounds like they’re not getting any special gifts from K Street this Xmas. Now, word has it that the Speaker is pushing to split the bill in two and wants a vote next week. She wants to split up the fuel economy increase with the Renewable Energy Standard so that at least one of them can make it through. It sounds like the latter may be in more trouble than the former in the Senate, but who really knows? I do have to hand it to her for acknowledging the youth saying, “We owe it to our children and to our future to act now.”
She’s got that right. Congress owes it to their future to act now, because it doesn’t look like voters are feeling too keen on offering second chances right now. Rather than just sitting around and waiting for them to make the right choice, some folks have busted out a big spotlight in attempt to show them the light on the Energy Bill:
- The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has put together some detailed recommendations for the Energy Bill debate.
- Solar Nation has put out an action alert asking its members to call Congress to save the renewable energy tax credits in the bill.
- Energy Action Coalition has put together a toolkit for taking action on the Energy Bill, emphasizing the RES, the CAFE standards, a $125 million green jobs training program, and the removal of all nuclear, coal, and other dirty subsidies from the bill. The first action in the toolkit is a national call-in day to representatives tomorrow (11/28).
This next week or so is a big deal. With the Bali climate talks on the horizon and the end of the legislative session approaching, this is the chance to build on the momentum from Power Shift before everybody puts on their sweater vests and shoves a bit of coal in the stove for the holidays. Denis Du Bois of Energy Priorities Magazine does a good job of framing the situation in his article, “Energy Bill 2007 Could Give Renewables Green Light — or a Lump of Coal”. Basically, we could either repeal $23 billion in subsidies to Big Oil and give it to renewables or steal the subsidies that these emerging technologies need to grow at a time when they’ve just started to get off the ground.
What’s it gonna be Congress? Are you going to wake up and smell the 21st century or go the way of Pat Buchanan on Hardball?
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i have read that the tax credits will be in the bill not to worry see
An Insider’s Predictions of How New U.S. Energy Legislation Will Impact Solar, Wind & Ethanol Investors
Posted: November 26, 2007
There’s been a lot written recently about how the U.S. Congress is going to take away tax advantages currently bestowed on the solar and wind power industries, but according to an authoritative Washington insider, investors shouldn’t worry. He predicts that while the solar and wind industries probably won’t get the eight-year extensions on their production tax credits that they want, they likely will each get one-to-three year extensions.
“Everybody (in Washington) likes solar,” says this insider, who spoke on condition that he not be identified given how close he is to the ongoing energy debate in Congress. Wind, too, he added.
Meanwhile, for every investor who thinks ethanol’s heyday is over – a large number, given how poorly ethanol company stocks have performed recently – this insider says Congress is poised to keep corn-based ethanol production growing strongly for years to come. To be sure, outside Washington corn ethanol has an army of critics, many of whom are complaining bitterly that so much corn is being used to make transportation fuel that it’s significantly raising food prices. But such concerns apparently are falling on deaf ears inside the Beltway. Indeed, according to this insider, raising corn production over the next several years is viewed simply as good politics, with no thought as to how it might raise inflation.
To be sure, for federal financial support of corn ethanol production to be increased, Congress is going to have to find a source of revenue that will offset that loss to the Treasury. Thus the insider believes that the ethanol provisions in the pending legislation could get bogged down in the debate over whether to increase royalty taxes on domestic energy production. Still, he expects Congress to give the corn ethanol industry a mandate to keep growing, with exact targets left blank pending the outcome of the royalty debate.
As for Congress giving more money to speed up development of cellulosic ethanol, well, this insider says investors shouldn’t expect that to happen. Celluloisic ethanol is ethanol made from such non-food sources as wood and agricultural waste and even garbage. Outside the Beltway, cellulosic ethanol is seen as the direction the ethanol industry has to take. But inside the Beltway, cellulosic ethanol is still at the stage where Congress is thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this,” according to the insider. Not until cellulosic ethanol plants are actually up and running is Congress likely to really help push its development, the insider says.