In a letter delivered today, 154 businesses and organizations - joined by 31 individual activists - urged the Members of the U.S. Senate to extend and expand a package of energy efficiency and renewable energy tax incentives because "time is running out."

185 BUSINESSES, ORGANIZATIONS, AND ACTIVISTS URGE U.S. SENATE

TO EXTEND AND EXPAND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY TAX INCENTIVES

For Release: Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Contact: Ken Bossong (301-588-4741; 301-270-6477 x.23)


WASHINGTON DC -- In a letter delivered today, 154 businesses and organizations - joined by 31 individual activists - urged the Members of the U.S. Senate to extend and expand a package of energy efficiency and renewable energy tax incentives because "time is running out."

Specifically, the letter requests the Senate "to pass legislation to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC), Investment Tax Credit (ITC), and other federal tax incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and consumer purchases of energy efficient products."

The letter notes that "these critically important incentives have expired or will expire by the end of this year and must be extended immediately to avoid significant harm to the developing clean energy industries in the United States. ... Failure to promptly extend renewable energy tax incentives may be putting 116,000 solar and wind industry jobs and $19 billion in clean energy investment at risk."

The signing businesses and organizations further stressed that extensions of the efficiency and renewable energy tax incentives be longer-term and remain effective for multiple (e.g., five to eight) years.

"Congress has historically extended the clean energy incentives in one or two-year increments - often waiting until the last minute, which creates a boom-and-bust cycle for the technologies covered by the incentives. This cycle undermines the efficient development of clean energy technologies into mature industries. Additionally, this is a pattern that the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries are not similarly subjected to and which therefore puts sustainable energy technologies at an unfair competitive disadvantage in the energy marketplace."

The letter seeks Senate approval of extensions for renewable energy electricity generation, energy efficiency in commercial buildings, purchase and use of efficient home heating and cooling equipment and appliances, and renewable energy and efficiency retrofits for residential and commercial buildings. In addition to those which broadly support wind, solar, and geothermal technologies, the package of tax incentives should also embrace open- and closed-loop biomass for thermal energy and pipeline quality natural gas, geothermal (i.e., ground-coupled) heat pumps, small wind, solar daylighting, and water power (including free-flow hydropower, tidal, wave and ocean thermal and currents).

The full text of the letter and list of signers are available upon request from sustainable-energy-network@hotmail.com.

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Founded in 2006, the Sustainable Energy Network is a network of 500+ organizations, businesses, and individuals advocating aggressive development of sustainable energy technologies to curb energy imports, slash greenhouse gas emissions, and phase out nuclear power.