Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act of 2005

Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act of 2005

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Committee on Finance, today announced that the committee will mark up the Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act of 2005 on Thursday, June 16. The bill is the tax title of the energy policy bill now before the full Senate. He released a description of his chairman's mark and a score, both from the Joint Committee on Taxation. Grassley made the following comment on his chairman's mark. A description of the markup and score are posted at finance.senate.gov under "hearings" and "legislation" and also at http://www.house.gov/jct/. The markup notice is here following the Grassley comment.

"A lot of the chairman's mark focuses on alternative energy and conservation. There are dozens of reasons to develop alternative energy sources and no good reason not to. Sticker shock at the gas pump, national security concerns, and the depletion of finite resources such as fossil fuels all build the case for alternative energy sources. The same is true for conservation. We have a successful track record in encouraging alternative energy through tax incentives. For example, the
wind energy production tax credit I established for the first time in 1992 has helped to encourage wind energy farms around the country. Tax incentives work, and we need to keep them going. The chairman's mark also has some incentives for conventional energy production, but they're narrowly defined to increase refinery capacity. On the score of the chairman's mark, it complies with the budget resolution. The budget resolution provides $11 billion for energy tax incentives over five
years. Historically, the energy tax incentives bill has had a net score of $15 billion to $16 billion over 10 years. The chairman's mark stays within this bipartisan guideline."

http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2005/prg061405.pdf