Hill Heat

Upon the House passage of the oft-stymied oil-for-renewable tax package as a standalone bill (H.R. 5351) last week, Ben Geman of E&E News reported on a possible mechanism for moving the bill through the Senate with a simple majority:

Senate Democrats are eyeing a filibuster-proof budget bill as a vehicle for energy tax provisions that have narrowly failed to win the 60 votes needed to cut off debate, several lawmakers said yesterday.

Energy taxes are a “candidate to be considered in [budget] reconciliation,” Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told reporters. “I think we have to look at things that reduce our dependence on energy.”

The oil-for-renewables package, which faces the threat of a Bush veto, received resounding support from a broad coalition of industry, investors, and environmental organizations in a press conference today on the first day of the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference. President Bush is scheduled to offer the keynote address to the convention tomorrow.

The Democratic House leadership sent a letter today challenging Bush to sign the House oil-for-renewables tax package (H.R. 5351) passed by their chamber yesterday.

Promotion of the renewable energy industry is the goal of the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, which your Administration hosts next week. The conference offers a remarkable world platform to support a fiscally responsible commitment to these industries and technologies and the jobs they will produce. We urge you to reconsider your previous opposition to fiscally sound incentives for American renewable energy, and lend your support to this historic legislation in time for this occasion.

At today’s press conference, President Bush parried a question about his threatened veto of bill (after admitting ignorance about the likely $4 gallon gas this spring).

He claimed the cost-neutral bill would “cost the consumers more money and we need more oil and gas being explored for, we need more drilling, we need less dependence on foreign oil.” With respect to renewable energy, he discussed cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels, nuclear energy, and carbon sequestration, but not solar, wind, or energy efficiency.

From the beginning of her tenure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has attempted to pass legislation cutting billions in tax breaks and royalty payments to oil and gas companies to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The legislation has died twice by a single vote in the Senate – in December as part of the energy bill (H.R. 6), and three weeks ago as part of the economic stimulus legislation (H.R. 5140).

House leadership announced plans to immediately reintroduce the legislation as a standalone bill, named the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 (H.R. 5351).

Debate on the bill is now taking place, with a final vote scheduled for some time after 3 PM EST.

Update: HR 5351 passed by a roll call vote of 236-182. 17 Republicans joined the Democratic majority; 8 Democrats (Barrow, Boren, Cuellar, Gene Green, Lampson, Melancon, Ortiz, Rodriguez) voted against passage.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the House Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Caucus invite you to a briefing addressing the impacts of the President’s FY 2009 budget on energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE) programs, including impacts upon states and low-income consumers. In addition, the urgent need to extend Federal tax incentives for EE/RE will be discussed. Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are critical elements of a national energy policy that will meet the nation’s goals of reducing energy imports, moderating energy prices, and improving the economy, national security, the environment and public health.

Panel

• Deborah Estes, Majority Counsel, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
• Scott Sklar, President, The Stella Group; Chair, Sustainable Energy Coalition Steering Committee
• Bill Prindle, Deputy Director, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy
• Jeff Genzer, General Counsel, National Association of State Energy Officials; Duncan Weinberg, Genzer & Pembroke

14/02/2008 at 02:00PM

Following the second one-vote defeat of the renewable tax package in the Senate last week, House leadership let slip they planned to re-introduce the oil-for-renewables legislation some time this week, for passage before the President’s Day recess.

Today Katherine Ling reports in E&E News that timeline is now in doubt:

The death of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and last-minute negotiations may delay House plans to take up a renewable energy tax incentive package later this week. Lantos died yesterday morning due to esophagus cancer complications. . .

The bill was expected to be introduced this morning, according to Matthew Beck, a spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). Beck said the committee was writing the bill but had not completed it yet as they were waiting for decisions from the leadership.

Following the one-vote failure on Wednesday of S. Amdt 3983 to H.R. 5140, the Senate stimulus package that contained $5.6 billion in “green” incentives, various environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, called Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for missing the vote.

On Thursday, the Sierra Club asked its members to call McCain’s office to ask “why he failed to show up for a vote that could have determined the future of green energy in America.”

Today, Executive Director Carl Pope blistered the office response to member calls in a blog post entitled John McCain Should Be Ashamed.

Immediately, people begin calling and emailing me, saying, “The Senator’s office says he voted for clean energy, and that your alert is wrong.” We check. He didn’t. We call his office. Stunningly, his staff has been coached to mislead callers. “That’s not true at all,” they say, “he voted for the bill yesterday.” Well, he voted, yesterday, but for a different bill. However we phrase the question, we get a lie. “No, if he had voted for the bill, it would not have passed. That was purely procedural.” But McCain’s staff knows that if cloture had been invoked, passage of the bill would then only require 51 votes, and the bill with clean energy would have passed. [Ed.- emphasis added.]

By a roll call vote of 58-41, Senate Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster threatened by Republicans of the Senate’s version of the stimulus package (S. Amdt 3983 to H.R. 5140). The package differed from the House version by including:

• expanded tax-rebate eligibility for low-income seniors, disabled veterans and married couples
• a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits
• additional LI-HEAP funding
• $5.6 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency incentives
• tax breaks for coal companies

This is the second time a renewal of the renewable production tax credits has failed by one vote in the Senate.

All Democrats, including Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who voted against the production-tax-credit package in the 2007 Energy Bill, voted for the Senate version (except for Sen. Reid, who cast a procedural vote against the package when it was evident cloture would fail).

Republican senators Collins, Snowe, Smith, Coleman, Grassley, Dole, and Domenici voted in favor of the package. All but Snowe (Maine) and Grassley (Iowa) are up for reelection this year, although Domenici has announced his intention to retire.

Sen. John McCain was the one senator not in attendance.

Friends of the Earth and David Roberts at Grist have singled out John McCain for the failure.

In today’s executive session on the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, the Senate Finance Committee passed by a 14-7 vote a package that includes $5.6 billion in “green” incentives, including $400 million in new “clean renewable energy bonds”, a one-year extensions for:

• the renewable electricity production credit
• solar, fuel cell, and microturbine credits
• energy-efficient building deductions and credits;

and two-year extensions for:

• the high-efficiency appliances manufacturing credit
• stripper well depreciation credit
• energy-efficient home retrofitting credit

Full details are available here.

Last Friday, 33 senators sent a letter to the Committee leadership urging support for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green jobs incentives.

According to the Sierra Club, by today the number of Senators was up to forty:

Senators who have expressed support for the inclusion of the renewable energy incentives include: Cantwell, Snowe, Wyden, Smith, Klobuchar, Kerry, Sununu, Sanders, Dole, Boxer, Johnson, Allard, Salazar, Mikulski, Stabenow, Murray, Dorgan, Brown, Bayh, Clinton, Collins, Specter, Menendez, Thune, Feingold, Dodd, Levin, Obama, Brownback, Coleman, Murkowski, Feinstein, Schumer, Stevens, Lautenberg, Leahy, Akaka, Kohl, Roberts, Grassley, Bingaman, and Domenici.

Modification Energy Package part of package passed by committee.

Provision	Approx Cost (billions)
PTC (Sec. 45)	3.0
Solar (residential & business, including fuel cells, microturbines)	0.13
CREBs ($400m allocation)	0.2
Commercial buildings	0.15
Efficient homes (new)	0.06
(exp. 12/07) Efficient homes (existing)	1.5
(exp. 12/07) Efficient appliances	0.32
Percentage Depletion (marginal wells and stripper wells)	0.25
TOTAL	5.57

1. Production Tax Credit (Section 45). Extends placed-in-service deadline for qualifying electric generating facilities (wind, biomass, geothermal, etc.) for one year. Estimated cost is $3b/10.

2. Solar, fuel cell, microturbine credits (Sections 48 and 25D). Extends Section 48 (30% investment credit for solar and fuel cell property, 10% credit for microturbines) and Section 25D residential solar credit for one year. Cost is approx. $130m/10.

3. Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs). Provides $400m in new CREBs issuance, at estimated cost of $206m/10.

4. Appliances Manufacturer Credit. Extends manufacturer credit for high-efficiency appliances for two years through 2009, at cost of approximately $323m/10.

5. Energy-Efficient Existing Homes. Extends 10% investment tax credit for energy-efficient home retrofits (windows, heating and cooling equipment, etc.) through 2009, at estimated cost of $1.5b/10.

6. Energy-efficient Commercial Buildings: Extends deduction for energy-efficient commercial buildings for one year, at estimated cost of $153m/10.

7. Energy-efficient New Homes. Extends credit for energy-efficient new homes for one year, at estimated cost of $61m/10.

8. Percentage depletion for marginal wells. Extends suspension on the taxable income limit for purposes of depreciating a marginal oil or gas well through 2009, at estimated cost of $247m/10.

30/01/2008 at 02:30PM

Thirty-three senators, including several Republicans, sent a letter Friday urging leadership to include the renewable tax incentives set to expire this year in the economic stimulus package. Inclusion of the production tax credits in the 2007 energy bill failed by one vote.

We strongly support current bipartisan efforts to mitigate an economic downturn by providing direct financial relief to American families. At the same time, we believe that we must be cognizant that energy prices have been a leading cause of our current economic environment. Accordingly, we strongly believe that we must provide a timely long-term extension of clean energy and energy efficiency tax incentives that expire at the end of this year. Given record energy prices and growing demand, postponing action on these critical energy incentives will only exacerbate the problems afflicting our economy. In fact, these renewable energy and energy efficiency investments have a verifiable record of stimulating capital outlays and promoting job growth. We must ensure that this impressive record is maintained in 2008 and extend these tax credits expeditiously.

Nine of the signatories are members of the Finance Committee.

Full text of the letter is available here.