In a blistering attack, Nevada’s Republican senator John Ensign has launched an offensive against solar energy lobbyists, ahead of a crucial vote on renewable energy tax credits.
Breaking ranks with the the state’s increasingly important solar industry, Ensign said that efforts by the Solar Energy Industry Association to force his hand on tax breaks had in fact had the opposite effect of “personally alienating” him and other senators.
The renewable energy tax credits were slipped into a housing bill that that did not end up looking the way its lead author, Sen. Chris Dodd really intended it to, remarking earlier in the week that it was “a housing bill, not a Christmas tree.â€
However, will the production tax credit and investment tax credit ever make it to the President’s desk to sign?
Since the energy crisis of the late 1970s, the federal government has employed various policy mechanisms to support renewable energy development. Driving through the neighborhoods that were developed in the late 70s and early 80s, it’s not hard to notice all of the old rooftop solar water heating arrays that were installed because people were taking advantage of a tax credit made available by the Carter administration.
