WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today chaired a Senate Finance Committee hearing to discuss the importance of certain clean energy tax credits.
 
Bingaman, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, organized the hearing because several tax credits that incentivize energy efficiency and the use of clean energy are about to expire.
 
“At least ten important tax provisions will expire by the end of the year, and several more will end next year. These incentives are extremely important to keep in place if we're going to make a shift to a greater reliance on renewable, homegrown energy,” Bingaman said.
 
“I believe we need a long-term tax incentive strategy for alternative energy, just like we've had for years for the oil and gas industry. It's the only way we can help grow the clean energy sector -- and the jobs that come with it,” he added.
 
Bingaman is pushing to promptly extend incentives for residential energy efficiency, certain promising biofuels, and renewable energy generation. He is also interested in building support for a long-term strategy, rather than simply extending the tax credits for one or two years at a time. One concrete example is the production tax credit, which expires at the end of 2012 for wind. That expiration, however, is far too late to avoid major disruptions in deployment, manufacturing and jobs.
 
Witnesses at the hearing, which included Martha Wyrsch, President of Vestas American Wind, and Paul Soanes, president and CEO of Renewable Biofuels in Houston, Texas, testified that renewable energy industries, while still young, have grown significantly and now support a number of jobs across the value chain, from manufacturing, research and development, sales, installation, and finance. These industries have become an important domestic economic sector.
 
“One important take away from today's hearing is that Congress needs to develop a more holistic, forward looking incentive structure for renewable energy that can both aggressively help industry scale up while also not become a permanent fixture of the tax code,” Bingaman said.
 
Bingaman also chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and has been instrumental is working to shift our country to a cleaner energy economy.