Colorado has millions of dollars in investments and thousands of jobs riding on the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
If approved by the Senate and signed into law, the bill will extend tax credits for renewable energy production, such as wind- and solar-generated power. Otherwise, many of the existing incentives will expire by the end of this year.
Those credits have helped spark a boom in renewable energy in Colorado, with 700 megawatts coming on line last year, primarily from wind power, said Tom Plant, director of Gov. Bill Ritter’s energy office.
“But when companies can’t plan on those credits continuing, they have to hold off on new production,” he said. “There are a number of renewable energy projects on hold in Colorado already.”
The measure approved by the House would give a green light to such pending Colorado projects by authorizing $8 billion in long-term renewable energy tax incentives for electricity produced from renewable resources, including wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydropower, ocean tides, and landfill gas.
It also provides $2 billion in new Clean Renewable Energy Bonds for electric cooperatives and public power providers to finance facilities that generate electricity from renewable resources.
Other elements of HR 5351 include:
• Up to $3.6 billion in interest-free loans for state and local governments to finance environmental conservation and efficiency programs.
• Tax incentives to help homeowners and businesses reduce energy costs by investing in energy-efficient property.
• Incentives to expand production of homegrown fuels, including cellulosic ethanol produced from domestically grown plants such as corn and switchgrass. It also includes incentives to increase the number of E-85 pumps serving consumers with flexfuel vehicles.
All these programs come at zero net cost to taxpayers, since they would be offset by repeal of $18 billion in special tax incentives to the oil and gas industry. Such a trade is long overdue. If crude oil prices of $100 a barrel aren’t enough incentive to find new sources of energy, it’s ludicrous to think that more truckloads of taxpayer cash would do the trick.
Colorado, home to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and blessed with abundant wind power and sunshine, is poised to become the OPEC of renewable energy.
The wise policies in the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 will speed us toward such an environmentally sustainable and economically rewarding future.
We hope the Senate and President Bush agree.
