Advanced Energy Perspectives

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee took a critical step toward modernizing America’s energy infrastructure by approving a tax extenders package that supports continued investment in advanced energy technologies. The full Senate could take up the bill to restore and extend tax credits that expired at the end of 2013 in the coming weeks. On Tuesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) held the first of an expected series of hearings on expired tax provisions.

Melanie Kenderdine, Director of the Office of Energy and Policy Analysis and Energy Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), joined advanced energy business leaders for a breakfast discussion hosted by AEE on March 19. Kenderdine shared insights around the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER), a multi-year process that will offer a comprehensive outlook on both federal and state energy policy moving forward.

Early this year, President Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum establishing the QER Task Force. “Affordable, clean, and secure energy and energy services are essential for improving U.S. economic productivity, enhancing our quality of life, protecting the environment, and ensuring our Nation’s security,” Obama noted in the memo. “Achieving these goals requires a comprehensive and integrated energy strategy resulting from interagency dialogue and active engagement of external stakeholders.” The task force is co-chaired by John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Dan Utech, Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.

Key tax committees in the Senate and House of Representatives are expected to take up “tax extenders” in the coming weeks. Extension of tax credit provisions that expired at the end of 2013 remains critical to the stability and growth of the domestic advanced energy industry.

The House of Representatives achieved a bipartisan advanced energy victory last week when the House passed energy efficiency legislation (H.R. 2126) championed by House Energy and Commerce Committee members Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV). Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH) hope the Senate will follow suit and pass their recently reintroduced bill (S. 2074), which includes all of the House provisions along with additional pieces. That would set the stage for a conference between the two chambers to work out the differences in the bills and move to the President's Desk.

This week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) released a provocative tax reform proposal that would zero out advanced energy tax credits among many other changes to the tax code. While the prospects for tax reform are all but non-existent this year, the draft represents Chairman Camp’s stake in the ground in a discussion that will carry on into the next Congress. On the other side of the Capitol, new Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) continues to focus on moving legislation to address the extension of tax provisions that expired at the close of 2013. Finance Committee staff anticipate an accelerated process, skipping time-consuming hearings and moving to mark up a tax extender bill as early as next month.