5 item(s) were returned.
U.S. House of Representatives
Member, Energy & Commerce Committee
It is critical that we ensure our nation enjoys a reliable and resilient grid, and that consumers continue to have access to affordable and reliable electricity. But today, coal-fired power generating plants are being closed at an alarming rate. Since 2010, plants representing almost 108,000 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity have shut down or announced plans to close. Indiana alone ranks second among all states with 39 coal-fired electric generating plants having already retired. As a supporter of an all-the-above energy strategy, I believe that power generators should rely on a diverse mix of fuel sources. Coal-fired generation is one… [more]
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United States Senator, State of Hawaii
Member, Senate Appropriations Committee
My legislation is based on a very simple idea. And that idea is that there ought to be a level playing field between fossil fuels and clean energy. Right now, fossil fuels subsidies in the tax code, for the most part, are permanent and the clean energy tax credits, for the most part, are temporary. Now, there is a good reason to make tax credits, subsidies, and incentives temporary in the tax code; from a policy standpoint, that requires legislators to reevaluate how a policy is working over time and to make modifications. But when you make a tax incentive… [more]
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Editor
Bloomberg's First Word Energy
Coal can’t get much love. Cheap natural gas and a bevy of EPA regulations are conspiring to force old coal plants to close and pushing U.S. production down to less than one billion short tons, near a two-decade low. While low-cost production in Wyoming and Illinois has been able to hold steady, the legacy mines of Appalachia face devastating losses in production and jobs. Meanwhile, projects that were supposed to demonstrate a future for coal in a carbon-constrained world are struggling or dead. The Obama administration pulled the plug on the FutureGen clean coal project this month. Another similar project… [more]
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Principal
Perelman Group
Jesse Jenkins (MIT) and Matthew Stepp (Center for Clean Energy Innovation) are among a number of policy analysts who have called for a “tax and invest” strategy to combat global warming. That is: A modest tax on carbon emissions would be invested in government research, development, and innovation-promotion programs to commercialize new alternative energy technology. But in a recent article I have argued there are at least four reasons to question whether typical government technology programs would be as cost-effective an investment as Jenkins and others claim: 1. The government role in innovation is neither necessary nor sufficient. Of the… [more]
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Executive Director
The Solar Foundation
There is an investment vehicle available to oil and natural gas development that is not available to renewable energy resource projects. There is a current effort in Congress to change that situation. Most political leaders today claim they support an “all of the above” energy strategy. Yet solar and other renewable energy resources are currently restricted by the lack of access to master limited partnerships (MLPs). MLPs are business structures that are taxed as a partnership, but whose ownership interests are traded like corporate stock on a market. MLPs have the advantage of avoiding double taxation. Projects done through MLPs… [more]
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