The framework tax deal announced this week by President Obama and GOP leaders in the Senate threatens to kill jobs in one of the sectors our nation needs most -- clean energy.
In its current form, the deal would allow the only effective federal support mechanism for renewable electricity to expire, killing the 20,000 wind energy jobs and 11,200 jobs in geothermal that would be created in 2011, and the 65,000 jobs in solar over the next two years.
In addition, without an extension of the Renewable Energy Grant Program (1603), the domestic wind industry will lay off upwards of 25 percent of its workforce -- 20,000 people -- on the first of January.
This is not acceptable.
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In order to create new jobs, we must create brand new industries. Renewable energy -- like wind, solar and geothermal -- is a natural resource that can be harvested domestically with equipment and technology made in America.
Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress don't see it that way. They are determined to keep America tethered to the dirty, pollution-heavy energy industries of the past. This Congress, Republicans have fought to keep some $36 billion in subsidies for the biggest industry in the mix -- oil and gas.
That would be the same oil industry that has dictated a failed U.S. energy policy for decades. It is one that runs on foreign oil, siphoning half a billion dollars a day out of the U.S. economy and directing it to OPEC and nations in the Middle East that support terrorist activity. Foreign oil alone represents nearly half our trade deficit.
This is not acceptable.
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We need an oil change. That is why Democrats in Congress are fighting to extend the Renewable Energy Grant Program (1603) for two years. This program was created under the Recovery Act as a patch for the production tax credit (PTC) and the investment tax credit (ITC) programs.
In the wake of the Republican recession that destroyed eight million jobs and dismantled financial markets in 2008, new clean-energy entrepreneurs and small businesses could not get access to credit -- meaning the existing production tax credit and the investment tax programs no longer worked.
Democrats acted in an emergency situation to save these jobs and ensure that the American clean-energy sector -- which has the potential to become the most important global economic driver for the next century -- did not meet an untimely end.
And the results are clear. The Renewable Energy Grant Program created 55,000 jobs and directly led to the deployment of 4,250 megawatts of renewable energy in 2009.
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Harvesting this clean, safe renewable energy has also created an opportunity to breathe new life into America's factories. The Recovery Act also included the Clean Energy Manufacturing Program (48C) allocating $2.3 billion in tax credits for building and expanding manufacturing facilities.
That provided a 30 percent tax credit for investments in 183 manufacturing facilities for clean energy products across 43 states to support 41,000 jobs. Demand for this program exceeded expectations -- $7.7 billion worth of applications poured in -- and it helped get Americans out of unemployment lines and back onto assembly lines building wind turbines and solar panels.
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Democrats in the House spent the past two years fighting to forge a real, long-term plan for American energy independence, a plan that ensures the United States doesn't take second place to China in the race for clean-energy jobs and technology.
Our plan included a Renewable Electricity Standard, electric vehicle incentives, and efficiency measures. Our plan protected consumers from price spikes, like $4 gas, and gave small business and entrepreneurs the chance to compete with Big Oil.
Unfortunately, other than the Recovery Act, Republicans in the Senate killed every attempt to move forward on clean energy. As a result, the private investment community is now looking to move trillions of dollars away from the U.S. That money may now be spent on jobs in China, South Korea, Europe, and elsewhere.
This is not acceptable.
That is why, at a minimum, THIS Congress and the president must immediately move to protect and extend both the Renewable Energy Grant Program and the Clean Energy Manufacturing Program.
While Republican leaders may hope to push clean energy off the agenda in the 112th Congress, the reality is the threat of foreign oil, rising gas prices and jobs competition from China will keep these problems front and center.
Follow Rep. Ed Markey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markeymemo
Not only will it have a MUCH greater impact on climate change, but the entire political spectrum agrees that affordable energy independence (from ALL Big Energy, including Big Wind and Big Solar) is best for our economy, our national security, our grid reliability and the environment (which includes the massive tracts of land Big Solar and Big Wind permanently kill, along with everything living on them).
WE WANT PACE LOANS AND FEED IN TARIFFS SO WE CAN PROSPER, not more Big Energy giveaways!!
I won't give up. Our children's futures are at stake. Our descendants have a right to safe, healthy future. It's not going to be easy, but I am determined to keep fighting.
And no, most Americans cannot see the climate changing. I certainly can't. Any increases in extreme events have to be measured over timescales as long as a human lifetime and are relatively small increases. People would be much more willing to act if the changes were apparent in peoples' day to day lives.
Dems in Congress are 100% to blame for all the failures: the middle-class tax cut, weak health care and financial bills. The President is not a King, the Founding Fathers realized one man couldn't represent the people as well as the many in Congress.
,HOW MANY RICH FOLKS DIE IN THESE "WARS TO PROTECT AMERICAN OILMEN?"..
.ANSWER: NONE,EVER!
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/295289-1
Nuclear power must be included in any Clean Energy Standard; we cannot let fear mongering and ignorance guide policy. Know Nukes!
Education is key, I have 30 years experience with nuclear power in the USA, I know nuclear power is safe, reliable, sustainable and environmentally friendly. I have been working with nuclear power for 30 yrs; I would be glad to have a new Nuclear power plant or used fuel storage facility in my community. My family and I live within 10 miles the longest running nuclear power plant in the USA. I understand the risks involved and I’m completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard.(I calibrate the safety equipment so I'd have a pretty good idea) Nuclear power plants will provide an improved standard of living for the world, it is only a question of whether the USA will enjoy that prosperity or watch from the sidelines.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/09/nj-nuke-plant-us-oldest-t_n_794300.html
As such, the big energy story in the coming decades will not be so much the push for green technology (itself a decades-old idea), but rather how North America is becoming the new energy source for, well, countries like China, who will eagerly eat up US gas and coal exports like the US currently does "foreign" oil. I put foreign in quotes because the perceived US dependence on totalitarian regimes, esp. in the Middle East, for its oil is really flimsy. Greater and greater percentages of US petroleum imports come from Canada and West Africa. The US has already been surpassed by China as the leading consumer of Saudi oil, a "loss" that it should be proud of.
Green tech like electric cars still require coal-fired plants to produce their original electricity, and many other green techs like wind turbines require the environmentally destructive extraction of rare earth metals. Whole-heartedly pursuing green tech is like rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic. Ultimately, you are simply setting up new dependencies and shifting the pain from one sector to another. Moreover, the world is awash in energy for the foreseeable future.
If we build with the technology we have today, renewable energy won't be affordable for decades (or even centuries). We just don't have any reasonable way to build things as an affordable price, period. Why, then, does it make sense to keep pouring money down these holes?
For as much as I admire renewable energy (and I do)...
we're implementing it WRONG!
Take wind, for instance. Wind is unpredictable and inefficient (25% at best).
Hybridizing the wind energy plants (allowing for the use of peak generating periods for generating fuel, like hydrogen) would stabilize the energy grid, harness the wind energy more efficiently, and condense the size requirement (and footprint) of these expensive Wind Energy plants.
We're being reckless with the energy dollars - with Megawatt milestones that are false.
Did you happen to notice that Spain did EXACTLY what you want us to do and it broke their economy. You can't run a factory on wind mills, they kill thousands of birds every year and it takes at least a decade to break even on the energy to build them anyway. You can't till farmland on solar power, you can't place them over or under trees, you get zero out of them at night, they also require a huge energy investment up front, (and where does that come take a guess...)
You've already done enough damage to our economy Ed Markey please just go away.
www.nasa/poleshift.com Or
www.nasa.com (poleshift)
Republicans are killing jobs.
It ain't workin. Very good example of why we shouldn't.
He never should have made that model T on the assembly line.
good example of why we should
If my other neighbor gets a new car do I assume it's because he doesn't have a solar panel on his roof that he appears to be doing well financially?
The hockey stick?
Common sense and rational thought process are needed.
The sea levels are not rising and the polar bear is thriving.
Time to concentrate on things that are relevent.
Potentially destructive solar storms occurred in April, September and November. The latter, a huge one, narrowly missed earth. Imagine the impact of widespread, lengthy, blackouts!
Decentralized power production is a wise insurance policy - as well as a surprising way for disruptive green technologies to start to supersede the costly need for imported oil!
Political opposition may be minimal, since such blackouts would clearly be national emergencies.
A solar storm can cause power system collapse. In the U.S., damage could cause 130 million people to suffer a long-term blackouts. The cost - $1-2 trillion the first year. Roughly the price tag of both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!
Superseding grid dependency has now become a wise insurance policy for our population and the entire planet. See: www.aesopinstitute.org
The potential for power outages can be used to stimulate rapid commercialization of potentially cost-competitive, renewable, energy conversion systems.
Superseding oil and all fossil fuels can be accomplished very much faster than conventional wisdom (and predictable skepticism) would suggest is possible.
See Moving Beyond Oil and Running on Water on the Aesop Institute website.
Future cars can become power plants when suitably parked. Wirelessly selling electricity to local utilities and powering homes and businesses.
Such cars will not only pay for themselves, but can become a much better alternative than building coal or nuclear power plants.