Climate and energy

Kansas won the men’s basketball national championship. We are the champions!

Just had to say it. Now on to climate and energy related news.

Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008. Last week a bipartisan group of U.S. senators released a bill proposing to develop renewable energy and expand energy efficiency in buildings, homes and appliances. According to the GreenTech blog:

(The act) extends the investment tax credit for eight more years for businesses. Consumers would have the existing 30 percent federal tax credit on renewable energy projects, such as solar panels, extended another year and the $2,000 cap removed.

The bill doesn’t detail how the tax credits would be paid for, which is a crucial question.

Previous proposals attempted to pay for the renewed tax credit by rescinding existing tax breaks on oil companies. Those proposals were defeated in the Senate and were threatened by a White House veto at the end of last year.

For several months, executives in the solar and wind industries have been complaining that the lack of policy certainty is stalling the U.S. clean energy industry.

As many renewable energy advocates are aware, the instability of these production tax credits – they are often renewed from year to year, and the total amount spent on them doesn’t even come close to the amounts spent on subsidizing fossil fuels – has long hampered the renewable industry. According to Tax-news.com:

The legislation extends the placed-in-service deadline through 2009 for the Production Tax Credit to encourage electricity production using renewable energy resources such as geothermal, wind, biomass, hydropower facilities. With this change, these renewable energy plants will have valuable tax stability for 10 years, the bill’s sponsors argue.

To read a summary of the proposed legislation, click here (.pdf).

The current status of the U.S. regulating carbon dioxide. Yes. A little bit of a hot button for us here in Kansas, but in fact the debate extends far past the boundaries of our state (CSMonitor). Last year the Supreme Court ruled that the carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels was subject to the Clean Air Act, and that the EPA had to regulate it.

The EPA staff is raring to go, but EPA administrator Stephen Johnson has not exactly hopped to it. Critics charge that he is stalling until Bush gets out of office – for a long time, the Bush administration and its supporters fought pretty hard against accepting the scientific findings regarding the risks of climate change. Supporters say that caution in developing carbon regulation is a good thing, especially since these regulations will cover far more than the vehicle tailpipe emissions that were originally at issue in the Supreme Court case.

When KDHE Secretary Bremby testified before Congress on this same topic, he essentially said that the longer the federal government takes on this question, the harder you make it on the states. Regulatory uncertainty on the federal level leads to regulatory uncertainty on the state level.

In turn, that directly affects Kansans’ businesses and everyday lives – and a lot has had to be put on hold until the federal government gives clear signals.

And speaking of the EPA – mercury regulations. In February, a three-judge appeals court struck down an EPA regulation that “allowed for a pollution trading system to reduce mercury emissions from power plants, instead of requiring each plant to install the best available mercury controls” (AP). The Bush administration has appealed this ruling. The Utility Air Regulatory Group, a group of electric utilities, has filed a separate appeal.

And last, a plea from the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, for Governor Kathleen Sebelius to veto the second Holcomb bill. Reprinted straight from the KCStar online letters:

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org