Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) applauded inclusion of two of his amendments in the Clean Energy for America Act, which the Senate Finance Committee voted to advance today. One Whitehouse proposal is based in bipartisan legislation by Whitehouse and Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) to encourage innovation in the clean energy sector, and the other is a tax incentive for the use of clean aviation fuel.
“My amendments will help to encourage the clean energy investment necessary to stay within nature’s safe range of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming,” said Whitehouse. “We have plenty of good ideas for clean energy technology to battle climate change; the challenge is bringing them online quickly enough to make a difference. We also need incentives to address hard-to-decarbonize sectors like the aviation industry. That’s why I pressed so hard to include these proposals in the bill. I applaud Chairman Wyden’s drive to put our tax code squarely on the side of clean energy.”
Whitehouse’s first amendment draws on his draft Energy Sector Innovation Credit (ESIC) Act with Crapo. The amendment would increase the clean electricity production tax credit and the investment tax credit for nascent clean energy technologies that have achieved less than three percent market penetration in their sector of the economy. It would also provide a clean hydrogen production tax credit.
Whitehouse’s second amendment would offer a $1.50 per gallon blender’s credit for fuels that produce 50 percent less greenhouse gas emission compared to conventional jet fuel over the new fuel’s lifecycle. That credit would rise to $2 per gallon for fuels that achieve 100 percent lifecycle emissions reductions.
The Clean Energy for America Act, led by Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), would replace most of the dozens of existing technology-based energy tax incentives with first-of-their-kind tax credits tied to emissions reductions. The technology-neutral, emissions-based credits would help drive adoption of clean electricity, clean transportation, and energy efficiency across the U.S. economy. The credits would continue until federal authorities certify that emissions for the respective sectors are 75 percent below emissions levels from prior years.
