Bipartisan bill offers tax breaks for US clean energy sector

(ADPnews) – Oct 5, 2010 – The US has made a fresh display of its commitment to clean energy as a bipartisan duo of Senators on Friday unveiled a bill offering tax incentives for a wide range of low-carbon projects.

The Advanced Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2010 was introduced by Democrat senator and chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Jeff Bingaman and Republican senator Olympia J Snowe.

The proposal features performance-based tax credits for domestic energy efficiency improvements, USD 2.5 billion (EUR 1.8bn) of tax credits to help attract manufacturers of renewable energy or energy efficiency technologies, a USD 1 billion tax credit programme to help US manufacturers deploy energy-saving measures, and new tax credits for energy storage systems and carbon capture and storage projects.

If passed by the Senate, possibly during the lame duck session following November's mid-term elections, the bill could soothe the pain of the US clean energy industry, whose hopes for passage of a nationwide renewable energy standard (RES) by the end of the year are getting slimmer.

This is senator Bingaman’s second push to shore up the clean sector over the past two weeks alongside a separate bill that calls for a 15% RES on electrical utilities from 2011.

The new bills represent a shift in the US government's approach to climate change legislation after the Senate killed proposals for a comprehensive climate change bill this summer and President Obama signaled that instead he would pursue environmental legislation "in chunks".

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.731)

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