House Approves Key Clean Energy Tax Incentives

Press Release

House approves key clean energy tax incentives

Advances Inslee's vision for a New Apollo Project

By a vote of 263 to 160, the House extended key tax credits for clean-energy producers and investors as part of broad legislation aimed at boosting the economy and helping American families.

Most notably, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, H.R. 6049, included a six-year extension of the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar energy; a three-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for energy derived from biomass, geothermal, hydropower, landfill gas and solid waste; and, a one-year extension of the PTC for wind energy. A recent study showed that allowing such renewable-energy incentives to expire would lead to over 100,000 jobs being lost in the U.S. wind and solar industries in the next year and a half alone.

"American innovators have the talent to create technologies that will bring forth an American clean-energy revolution," said U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, a longtime advocate of extending and expanding key energy tax provisions and co-author of the book "Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy." "But they can't develop and commercialize green products without the market certainty and investment that will come from this tax package."

The bipartisan legislation would bring to fruition several tax provisions in Inslee's hallmark New Apollo Energy Act, H.R. 2809, such as a residential wind tax credit, expansion of the production tax credit to include marine energy, expansion of the investment tax credit to include combined heat and power facilities, renewable-energy bonds, and incentives for energy-efficient products, homes and buildings.

In addition to renewable energy tax provisions, the bill also would provide important tax relief for Washington state families by allowing residents of states with no income tax to continue deducting state and local sales tax from their federal tax returns, a tax-parity measure Inslee long has supported.

Last month, the Senate passed a short-term energy-tax amendment to a housing bill. The chamber may take up the broader House bill that won passage today.

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