As I mentioned on the National Journal’s Energy Blog, tax incentives are part of the solution but must be used with many more and different policies if we expect to build a competitive renewable energy industry in the U.S. that can compete with heavily subsidized programs in China, Japan and India. The U.S. needs policy incentives that both pull deployment and demand and push domestic manufacturing.
Yesterday, from the White House, Vice President Biden released a new report, “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” which outlines how the administration’s $100 billion investment in innovation has been, for the most part, money well spent. In his remarks, Biden highlighted four key areas where stimulus money was working:
•Modernizing transportation
•Jumpstarting the renewable energy sector
•Investing in groundbreaking medical research
•Building a platform that will enhance the private sector’s
On Friday, President Obama called on Congress to extend the popular clean energy manufacturing tax credit (MTC) [Section 48C] program by approving an additional $5 billion in investment. This would more than double the $2.3 billion that Congress authorized last year as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
An investment of this size would create upwards of 40,000 jobs and generate more than $12 billion in private sector investment, which would lead to an additional 90,000 jobs, according to the president.