US Senate Finance Passes Tax Extensions for Production Tax Credits (Engineering News Record)
The US Senate Finance Committee's passage on August 2 of legislation extending tax cuts known as "extenders" came as a welcome surprise to many. The package, cobbled together in the final week before the August recess by Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would extend dozens of tax provisions set to expire at the end of the year. It cleared the committee by a bipartisan 19-5 vote.
The legislation would provide more than $205 billion in tax-cut extensions for individuals, businesses and renewable-energy enterprises. One measure would expand the 10-year production tax credit (PTC) to projects under construction by the end of 2013, rather than put in place by 2012, which renewable-energy advocates hailed.
"That provision will really help all the renewable technologies," says Karl Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association. "Allowing projects to qualify by starting construction will spur development of geothermal power projects that otherwise would be on hold due to the impending PTC cliff," he says. Gawell estimates that at least 150 geothermal projects currently in the planning or early stages could benefit from the change.
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