Democrats push climate goals in new energy bill

OREANDA-NEWS. September 23, 2015.  Senate Democrats today introduced legislation that would temporarily extend renewable energy tax credits while phasing out other tax provisions for fossil fuels, as part of a new effort to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 34pc by 2025.

The bill has almost no chance of passing in the US Congress, where the Republican majority has consistently fought efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. But Democrats hope to use the legislation to highlight their views on energy as they try to retake control of the US Senate next year.

"Republican priorities are single minded," Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). "They bend over backwards for fossil fuel giants," investing heavily in coal, oil sands and crude production. "They do not want anything changed."

Democrats used the legislation today to attack Republicans over what they said was a refusal to craft the type of energy policies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) said the energy policies offered by Republicans amount to "Drill baby, drill" and forcing approval of Canadian midstream company TransCanada's proposed 830,000 b/d Keystone XL crude pipeline.

Democrats released the bill two days before Pope Francis is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress. Democrats are hoping Francis will repeat calls for the world to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. At least one Republican lawmaker plans to boycott the speech in protest of the pope's views on climate change.

The bill, called the American Energy Innovation Act, would extend federal tax credits for wind and solar energy through 2018. Congress allowed the production tax credit for wind and geothermal energy to expire at the end of 2014, while the federal investment tax credit for solar will expire next year. After 2018, the bill would offer those resources a "carbon-neutral tax credit" through 2025.

Congress has repeatedly extended tax credits after allowing them to expire. The Democrats' plan would make long-term tax changes that would avoid "stop-and-go incentives" for renewable energy projects that have left some developers in "limbo," said senator Ron Wyden (Oregon), ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Democrats plan to pay for these tax credits by phasing out tax breaks for fossil fuel energy production, which they estimate would cost \\$125bn over the next 10 years.

Republicans want to bring up for a vote a bill that would lift the 40-year-old restrictions on exporting crude, as well as a separate comprehensive energy bill that would try to speed up the permitting of natural gas facilities. But both of those bills will face difficulty in getting time on the floor of the Senate for debate.

Jack Gerard, president of oil industry trade group American Petroleum Institute, called the Democrats' proposal "an anti-consumer energy policy," with lawmakers attempting "to move away from our low cost, affordable, available energy sources like fossil fuels."