The US government needs to stop giving subsidies to Big Oil! This is such a common rallying cry that few stop to consider what it really means.
The idea appears simple: Oil companies make so much money the government should not support them. But is the government giving oil companies money? How does the system really work? Keep reading →
They took it right to the edge, but the US wind energy business managed to rescue the production tax credit around which many of their projects and manufacturing investments are structured. In the process Capitol Hill supporters of the sector rescued a claimed 37,000 jobs and the supply chain for a rapidly expanding form of power generation.
The effort to rescue the wind energy PTC and the also-extended investment tax credit (ITC) was not directly linked to the fiscal cliff debate, but became intertwined with the calendar-driven effort to prevent earlier tax cuts and credits from expiring without any replacement policy in place. The inclusion of the wind energy PTC, which was thought to be sufficiently likely to expire that companies spent significant sums as they rushed to turn on wind farms before the end of 2012, speaks to the expanded power of the wind industry groups in Washington, DC and the increased centrality of the wind energy business to major infrastructure and engineering firms with substantial US manufacturing operations including GE Energy, Siemens and Vestas. Keep reading →
Environment, energy programs survive fiscal cliff vote http://bit.ly/VZyUmX NRDC
Do not change tax treatment of municipal bonds, APPA, others tell Obama, Boehner http://ow.ly/gilJB APPAnews
The wind industry has a deal for lawmakers: they’re willing to sacrifice their tax credit for deficit reduction, as long as it’s not snatched away too quickly. Wind turbine makers say they’re OK with an industry plan to gradually phase out its tax credit as part of the fiscal cliff discussion — provided lawmakers extend it for another six years. The wind industry has been fretting that its tax credit – which covers about 30% of the cost of wind power — won’t be renewed when it expires at the end of 2012. The industry says up to 37,000 jobs are on the line if the credit expires. In a bid to prevent that from happening, the American Wind Energy Association said last week that the industry can compete against other power sources like coal and natural gas by 2018, so long as the credit doesn’t disappear before then.
As lawmakers race to negotiate a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, some experts say one tax increase should be on the table: a gas tax hike. Currently at 18.4 cents a gallon, the federal gas tax is used primarily to build and repair roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure. The tax raises about $32 billion a year. But that’s not enough. The government hands out about $50 billion a year to states and towns to help with road costs. The difference comes out of general funds or has to be borrowed. Meanwhile, the gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1993. “Establishing a sustainable resource base for transportation needs to be part of any grand bargain,” said Emil Frankel, a former transportation expert in the George W. Bush administration and now director of transportation policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “In the short run, raising the gas tax is the best way to do that.”
Solar power reduces electricity prices. As more solar is added to deregulated power grids, power prices fall lower. The secret sauce is the markets.
Deregulated power markets are invisible to many Americans, yet every few minutes they set the price for much of their electric power. There are ten separate power markets currently operating in the North America. According to the ISO/RTO Council, they serve approximately two-thirds of electricity consumers in the United States and more than half of all consumers in Canada. Keep reading →
In Wednesday’s much-hyped verbal slugfest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, few topics will loom larger than taxes. They’re a central battlefield for Republicans and Democrats, an area in which the two parties are fundamentally, philosophically divided. For much of the past four years, the Bush tax cuts, the capital gains tax rate, and the oft-repeated (and heavily spun) fact that 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax have been at the heart of Washington’s conflicts, and have often spilled over into other battles like the fights over health care reform and the debt ceiling.
The US oil and natural gas business has been an unusual bright spot for the American economy over the past four years, and that success has helped highlight energy issues as a major factor in the 2012 election cycle.
Energy has not traditionally been a focus of electoral politics beyond prices at the gasoline pump, but this year the broader focus on the economy and the government’s role in directing it have brought to light the successes, the potential and the risks of energy development in the US. Keep reading →
The scheduled expiration of a production tax credit for the wind industry has taken center stage in the energy policy debate between President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
The credit, which allows taxpayers to claim 2.2 cents for every kilowatt hour of wind energy produced by a utility-scale wind farm, is due to expire on Dec. 31, 2012, a prospect that is already causing layoffs in the wind industry, according to its advocates. Keep reading →
