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  • Maroon 5 has a message for you

    It’s been viewed over 15,000 times already. We’d have to commit acts illegal in most southern states to get that kind of viewership. On the subject of energy legislation, there’s a ton of action on energy this week. Particularly promising is news of a Senate compromise on tax relief — including a long-term extension of […]

  • Bipartisan deal in Senate would extend renewable tax credits

    The Senate appears to have reached a deal on a major tax package that includes the extension of tax credits for renewable energy that are set to expire at the end of this year. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chair and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, announced on Tuesday that […]

  • Renewable energy promotion policies: non-transparent or hidden

    Tax credit policies One of the ways the gap between market price and feasible price of renewable energy plants has been bridged is through tax benefits to investors. Just as the oil and gas industries have enjoyed various tax benefits to encourage investment in drilling, exploration, and production facilities, in the last couple decades investors […]

  • Gregg Easterbrook still knows nothing about global warming — and less about clean energy

    Slate magazine is seen as liberal, but is in fact just another status quo publication promoting a do-nothing policy on clean energy and global warming. Why else ask for a review of Tom Friedman’s new call to action, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, from the American Bjørn Lomborg? And I don’t mean that in a good […]

  • Big Oil whines that it’s something for nothing

    The oil industry has figured out what I’ve been saying for weeks: The Senate Gang of 20 swap of limited, offshore drilling for lots of clean energy is something for nothing. I hope Congressional Dems figure that out, too, and vote for the darn thing in droves. The key fact to bear in mind is […]

  • Congress goes back to work on energy

    Before Congress’ recess, a minority of lawmakers continued to block critical measures that could help break America’s addiction to oil, give consumers real energy choices, recharge our economy, and help solve global warming. Legislation to extend production tax credits for solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable sources passed the House again and again only to […]

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    House GOP leaders call for their energy bill, or no energy bill at all

    House Democrats are planning to co-opt the idea of an “all of the above” energy policy that the Republican congressional leadership has been pushing, offering them a bill that includes an expansion of offshore drilling, coupled with a renewable electricity mandate, energy-efficiency standards for buildings, and provisions to raise taxes on the oil industry. This […]

  • ‘Gang of 10,’ part 3

    Part 2 began an analysis of the bipartisan compromise proposed by the "Gang of 10" senators, suggesting that their deal isn’t so bad. The other evidence the deal isn’t so bad is that the House GOP is threatening to refuse to vote for it. The good of the five-year extension of the renewable tax credits […]

  • Meetings about clean energy conspicuously fail to identify the main barrier to it

    There were two remarkable aspects of the National Clean Energy Summit: Federal policy recommendations from the varied speakers — scientists, business types, politicians — were largely in sync. In fact, I got sick of hearing the same policies touted over and over again: renewable tax credits, cap-and-trade, electricity grid improvements, efficiency standards, renewable mandates, increased […]