Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 - Continued

Floor Speech

RENEWABLE ENERGY AND JOB CREATION ACT OF 2008--Continued -- (Senate - September 23, 2008)

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the series of votes we are going to be having on the extenders package and to thank my Chairman, Senator Baucus, for his leadership on this legislation because this is important legislation my colleagues are going to be voting on in a short period of time.

Senator Baucus has been diligent in working with Senator Grassley on various provisions that I believe are good for Washington State and for the country--specifically, the R&D tax credit and the continuation of that credit for 2 years. I thank Senator Baucus and Senator Hatch, who worked out a more robust tax credit for the future. We also are extending the college expense deduction; a continuation of that at $4,000. Many parents are struggling with many financial obligations, and college education costs that are continuing to rise. This legislation makes sure they can deduct some of these expenses and helps out those taxpayers.

For us in Washington State, it also is critically important we be able to continue to deduct sales tax from our Federal income tax obligations. It was about 22 years ago that Congress took away this opportunity for Washingtonians to be treated fairly, just like other States in the Union, to be able to deduct sales tax. We recently reestablished this policy, and this bill continues it for another 2 years, so that we are able to deduct what obligations we pay to the State of Washington from our Federal income tax obligation. This is stimulus to us in Washington State, and it is about tax fairness. We are glad that, for 2 more years, Washington residents will be able to either take a standard deduction or itemize their deductions and claim these taxes against their Federal tax obligation.

I remind my colleagues, too, about the importance of the energy provisions we are about to vote on. We are making a significant change in energy policy by promoting clean energy solutions for our country. In fact, were we to look at the 2005 bill we passed, which had many similar tax provisions in it related to energy production, it was probably two-thirds tilted toward fossil fuel and one-third for green energy. This bill turns that equation on its head; it is two-thirds for green energy solutions and one-third for fossil fuel. That heads us in the right direction as a Congress and as a country, it is where we should put our priorities.

This legislation unleashes the ability for us to focus on solar power in America. It unleashes the ability of solar power by giving it an 8-year tax credit horizon, the same we are giving to fuel cell technology. Concentrating solar power technology is a new endeavor that holds great promise for us in America and particularly in the Southwest. We think that over 400,000 jobs could be created in the next 8 years thanks to this technology, and those are jobs right here in the United States. That gives the United States the ability to produce enough power for probably over 7 million American households. It is also a $232 billion investment that we expect to see into our economy coming from these investment in solar energy. We are truly unleashing that power and producing what will be emission-free fuel for our homes and businesses.

For plug-in electric cars, this bill provides up to a $7,500 tax credit so an American citizen will be able to get a plug-in car and use that to drive down their cost of transportation. If you think about it, instead of spending $4 a gallon for gasoline, with a plug-in vehicle, your cost per gallon would probably be only about a dollar. That would be significant savings for the American consumer.

Third, we are including, for the first time in the Tax Code, faster depreciation for what are called smart meters. This technology is going to help us as consumers understand the power we are using and how we can manage that usage to reduce our energy costs. Tom Friedman has done a good job of evangelizing this. He believes this is where IT meets ET--where Internet technology meets energy technology. The fact is that we can build a smart electricity grid that understands what consumers are using and empowers those consumers to help drive down their costs. Once we get these meters installed throughout the country we will begin to realize energy savings just by moving power more efficiently around the electricity grids. We can save 10 percent on what power we are using today by just consuming it in a more efficient fashion.

This provision will help with the deployment of smart meters and smart grid technology that will help us move forward.

When we think about this platform of distributed generation, smart grid technology, the advent of efficiencies, we can see how we can build a national smart grid that will help us immensely because we know we are going to have an increase in demand, we know we want to reduce carbon emissions, we know there are intermittent sources of power such as we are talking about with wind and solar that we can work in cooperation with our other power sources, and we know that substituting electricity for oil can make a major transition for us in getting off our dependence on foreign oil.

All of these are improvements to that electricity grid. It is like taking our current two-lane dirt road highway and turning it into a superhighway of a smart electricity grid that can empower us in making this transition.

I am very happy that the accelerated depreciation provision made it into the legislation. I thank Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley for making that part of the tax incentives we are going to pass here today.

Lastly, there are over $10,000 in tax breaks to American consumers to try to help them lower their energy costs into the future. I know from the Presiding Officer that in the Northeast part of our country, a lot of people have suffered under the high cost of home heating fuel. This legislation helps them with tax breaks on wood-burning stoves so they can install the latest technology to turn wood pellets into a better, more efficient source of fuel and help drive down the demand on home heating oil. Hopefully this can help reduce the cost to many of the Northeast residents who are still using oil as their primary heating source.

The $10,000 in tax breaks, as I said, for items such as plug-in automobiles, wood stoves, solar panels on the homes, small wind farms, and a variety of things are going to help the American consumer reduce the burden they are now facing from higher energy costs.

We are taking this direction and moving closer to what we think the United States can be--a world leader in green technology. We are creating the platform and putting in place the right incentives in this legislation that will move our country away from its dependence on fossil fuel and on to the clean energy technologies that will make the United States a world energy leader.

I yield the floor.

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