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Energy fights loom in conference talks
The Koch-aligned American Energy Alliance think tank urged conferees to maintain the Senate’s current BEAT provisions and the House’s reduction of the PTC. “It’s time to wind down Big Wind’s system of giveaways and allow genuine price signals to guide our selection of electricity generation,” said AEA President Tom Pyle in a statement. [ read more … ]
Senate tax measure helps President Trump pivot away from clean energy and back to fossil fuels
Other provisions in the Senate tax bill are a boost to the White House fossil energy initiatives. One would treat investment tax credits for wind and solar plants as income and levy a tax on them. Wind and solar developments are eligible for a 30% tax credit under legislation approved in 2015. The nearly $50 billion invested annually in solar and wind projects in the United States has generated hundreds of thousands of jobs and been helped by the $12 billion to $15 billion in tax credit investments by multinational banks and other financiers. [ read more … ]
What We Know About Corporate Winners and Losers in U.S. Tax Bill
The proposed tax bill threatens a critical but esoteric source of wind and solar finance: tax equity. In tax-equity deals, renewable-energy developers sell portions of their projects’ tax credits to corporations — often banks and some insurance companies — that can apply the credits to their own tax bills. That market is expected to total $12 billion this year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. [ read more … ]
A $12 Billion Clean-Energy Tool That U.S. Tax Reform Could Kill
In tax-equity deals, renewable-energy developers sell portions of their projects’ tax credits to corporations — often banks and some insurance companies — that can apply the credits to their own tax bills. Most tax-equity investors are multinational companies and the issue now is that the Senate version of the tax-reform bill includes a provision that imposes a minimum tax on these companies’ foreign transactions. If they have to pay a minimum tax, they may no longer have any need for the credits acquired through tax-equity deals. [ read more … ]
Senate Tax Bill Passes With BEAT Provision
On Friday night, renewable trade organizations scrambled to turn around a provision in the Senate tax bill that would create a tax on equity investments for renewable energy projects. Gil Jenkins, a spokesman with the American Council On Renewable Energy, said groups were still working hard on outreach to Senators. According to a letter the Solar Energy Industries Association sent to members Friday, Republican Senators Heller, Grassley, Portman, and Gardner have been collaborating on a fix that would exempt the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) from the provision, called the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT). But their efforts did not prove to be successful. [ read more … ]
Moniz, states to release report abandoned by Trump
A group led by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and the National Association of State Energy Officials plans to produce a key energy jobs report left in limbo by the Trump administration. Moniz’s Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and NASEO said today they would release next spring the 2018 U.S. Energy and Employment Report. DOE used to issue the document to provide details on clean energy jobs and trends not otherwise available. [ read more … ]
Perry grid plan could cause 27,000 premature deaths — study
A new analysis of Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to save coal and nuclear plants says it could have major costs for energy consumers and the environment. Perry’s plan, now in the hands of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, would help save plants in certain electricity markets from premature retirement by allowing them to fully recover their costs and guarantee a profit. [ read more … ]
California Is Plenty Green But Iowa Has the Cleanest Power
California may be America’s clean-energy capital, but let’s give Iowa and North Dakota some credit too. Aggressive environmental polices under Governor Jerry Brown have given rise to vast wind and solar farms, allowing California to generate almost one-third of its electricity from renewable sources. Meanwhile, Iowa has one of the nation’s least ambitious clean-energy targets and gets as much as 40 percent of its power from wind and solar farms. [ read more … ]
Big changes may be in the offing for FERC enforcement
Five years ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced with fanfare that it had slapped an alleged market manipulator with a record fine, $469.9 million. There was less hoopla last month when FERC said it had settled the case against Barclays PLC and had slashed that ballyhooed fine by nearly 80 percent, to $105 million [ read more … ]
Pruitt ‘guaranteeing’ debate on climate science soon
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt could announce the red team within weeks, according to Bob Murray, a key ally of the administration and the CEO of Murray Energy Corp. The coal boss said in an interview that he has been personally pushing Pruitt to challenge the endangerment finding, the scientific underpinning for past and future regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Murray, who met with Pruitt last week, said the administrator told him the red-team debate is imminent. Pruitt also said the exercise is the first step toward a possible challenge to the endangerment finding. [ read more … ]
Developer Abandons Plans for Long-Stalled Cape Cod Wind Farm
A Massachusetts company is abandoning its long-stalled plans for a wind farm off Cape Cod. Cape Wind Associates notified the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week that it has ceased operations and was surrendering its federal lease for 46 square miles (119 square kilometers) in Nantucket Sound. Company vice president Dennis Duffy disclosed the official notice Friday. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.