Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a proposal to tax the windfall profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies. The GOP’s filibuster of the bill, which would have rescinded $18 billion in tax breaks for oil companies, not only lessened the chances of Big Oil footing some of the bill for record high gas prices, it also meant the likely death of tax breaks for another cause: growth and development of wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources.
Existing tax breaks have been crucial for alternative energy providers, allowing them to raise the capital they need for growth. But while most members of Congress express continued support for the tax breaks, and even take occasional action to safeguard them—the Senate voted overwhelmingly in April to give the breaks a one-year extension—they’ll nonetheless expire by the end of this year. Last week, the breaks lost another battle when Republicans blocked yet another Senate vote, this time on a proposal to raise the $18 billion for alt-energy tax credits by closing a tax loophole for hedge-fund managers.
We’re at a point where wind, solar, and other alternative energy providers are finally finding their legs in the market. Meanwhile, the experts point ever-ardently to the fact that continued development of alternative energy is crucial for fighting climate change—not to mention helping out all those consumers buckling under oil prices. This is a perfect opportunity for Congress to step in and bolster scientific advancement for the greater good, rather than bog itself down in partisan agenda. If we can’t even manage to keep tax breaks for alternative energy alive, we’ll be in pretty rough shape when it comes to even greater changes looming on the horizon.
At the very least, there’s the issue of jobs at stake, with American Wind Energy Association reps predicting a loss of up to 116,000 jobs in wind alone should the credits expire. Which, given our current employment numbers, is hardly a goal to shoot for.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
All we ever do is sit back and watch the show. I’m still quite young but very much aware that it was long before my time that my countrymen forgot that the Government was created to help the people… and not the other way around.
Today I think about distant history and the fate of the Conquistadors. They came, they conquered, they plundered with all their sweat and blood. In the end their rulers took everything they had to give and left them to rot in shame and ignorance. I doubt that the US would willingly follow that lead but I find it difficult to not contemplate the impact of the corruption of the ‘ruling class’ on common civilians.
When will enough of us be able and eager to stand against the multitude of injustices done to us? We suffer for their profit.
Hope is meager sustenance.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:09 am
How true and also true that it is the people that have forgotten that this nation is a constitutional republic and not a democracy and allowed this to happen. Our forefathers made it this way so that mob-rule would not exist and the minority would be protected. This is happening with smoking bans also, junk science created by the big pharmacueticals repeated enough that the majority begins to believe that second hand smoke is harmful even though the Supreme Court of the United States of America has agreed the studies are false, no one is stoping them. All studies PROVING otherwise have been squashed. After all, tobacco is the competition for smoking cessation products and over one BILLION dollars has been spent toward the goal of wiping out the competition for gains of many BILLIONS. Yes, smoking is not good for you, but neither is false propoganda leading to mob-rule and private business owners then losing their private property businesses and their livlihoods. Shame on us!
August 11th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
[…] of the piece is buried towards the end: the fact that the tax credit for renewable energy—an invaluable credit that Congress has struggled to keep afloat—is getting held up yet again because of the deadlock over offshore drilling. So not only is […]