Congress frittered away valuable time this summer instead of aiding fledgling solar power utilities – likely the best alternative to fossil fueled heat, industry and transportation.
Solar energy is abundant in the U.S. - vast stretches of Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, to name just a few states, are lit by a huge amount of solar energy each year. There are even solar power companies, like Abengoa Solar, that claim they can store solar power in the form of heat batteries, allowing steam to be generated for electricity when the sun isn’t shining.
But Abengoa officials say they can’t compete in the energy market unless they receive the same subsidies Congress has long extended to the oil industry.
Sounds fair. At first blush, you might think the members of the House and Senate think leveling the playing field is reasonable – Congress was considering two bills providing subsidies for renewable energy companies.
But both stalled out before the summer break, one in the House and the other in the Senate, and the President’s track record indicates he’s likely to veto one of them.
The deal killer? Legislators can’t seem to agree on whether the new subsidies should be paid for by cutting existing fossil fuel subsidies, or paying for them outright (with new taxes, or, more likely, deficit spending).
Senator John Ensign, R, Nevada, an opponent to the Consumer First Energy Act and the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, said he objects to those subsidies because they’re paid for by increasing the burden on the oil and gas industry.
That bill stalled in the Senate, 53 to 43, with four senators – Barack Obama, D, IL, John McCain, R. AZ, Edward Kennedy, D, MA and Ted Stevens, R, AZ – abstaining, according to OpenCongress.org.
There’s a complete list of how each Senator voted on the bill at that Web site. All 43 of the senators who opposed the measure were Republicans. Yet they’re the guys trying to pressure the Democrats into a special session – to redress an issue they took the wheels off of.
Assuming the abstaining voters can be persuaded to weigh in on the bill when Congress returns in September, and that they vote along party lines, the subsidies will need to win the support of at least some Republicans.
But then there’s the President’s historic opposition to Congressional attempts to fund tax breaks by taking them from oil companies. He’s likely to veto the Consumer First bill.
Meanwhile, Ensign’s own bill for renewable energy tax credits, the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008, which would award the subsidies without cutting perks for the oil and gas industry, is on the table. Problem is, the House is opposed to awarding tax credits without making up the revenue by offsetting credits someplace else, according to cleantechnica.com.
That bill passed in the Senate 88-8, but hasn’t been voted on in the House – it’s still in the House Committee on Ways and Means.
There’s some hope there according to Representative Stephen Lynch, D-MA – the House has waived that principle to deal with emergency situations.
“That type of incentive is not necessary when oil companies are just hitting it out of the park,” Lynch said.
If there’re only so many tax breaks to hand out, it seems more than fair to take some away from the oil companies and put renewable energy on the same playing field as oil. This is the first step in making the switch away from our dependence on oil – by promoting investment in other areas.
Doubling gasoline prices have grievously wounded the U.S. economy, and it is common knowledge that worldwide demand will continue to outstrip supply, even with offshore drilling. Envision the state of the economy with gasoline prices doubled yet again. It would be nice if, when that happens, Americans had some other alternative.
Electricity from solar, combined with hydrogen fuel cells, can keep us going – electric cars and hybrids can handle transportation, and hydrogen power, converted from electricity and dwindling oil supplies, can keep industry and construction going. (Hydrogen won’t work alone, because you need some other energy source to produce it).
By all accounts, the sun is predicted to continue shining for billions of years. You’ll get no such assurance from Big Oil.
Something has to give – either there needs to be a conversion of enough Republican Senators to veto-proof the Senate bill, or the House has to relent on making up the difference for a solar tax break.
Neither principle - the Republican Senators’ aversion to taking from oil to pay for solar, nor the House leaders’ ideal of offsetting tax breaks - is as important as making sure the U.S. economy specifically, and civilization in general, doesn’t choke on rising oil prices.
