Friday, June 29, 2007

House Ways & Means Passes Energy Tax Package

Update: On 8/4/2007, pursuant to the provisions of H. Res. 615, the text of H.R. 2776, as passed by the House, was appended at the end of the text of H.R. 3221 as new matter.

The House Committee on Ways and Means, led by Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), left, voted 24 to 16 in favor of H.R. 2776 the “Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Act of 2007. The bill will now head to the House floor for final passage.


The bill 1) extends the placed-in-service date for four years (through December 31, 2012) for qualifying facilities: wind; closed-loop biomass; open-loop biomass; geothermal; small irrigation hydropower; landfill gas; and trash combustion facilities. 2) extends the 30% investment tax credit for solar energy property and qualified fuel cell property for eight years (through the end of 2016, 3) authorizes $2 billion of new clean renewable energy bonds for public power providers and electric cooperatives, 4) The bill removes the caps on the credit for residential solar property (currently capped at $2,000) and residential fuel cell property (currently capped at $500 per half kilowatt of capacity, 5) bill establishes a new credit for each qualified plug-in vehicle. The base amount of the credit is $4,000, 6) creates a new production tax credit of 50 cents per gallon for cellulosic alcohol, 7) extends for two years (through December 31, 2010) the $1.00 and 50 cent per gallon production tax credits for biodiesel and the small biodiesel producer credit of 10 cents per gallon, 8) increases the 30% alternative refueling property credit (capped at $30,000) to 50% (capped at $50,000, among others.

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