Last week, the US House of Representatives passed HB6, a bill that rescinds $14B tax breaks to oil companies, and allocates money to fund renewable energy. Excellent to see the new congress start to buy back energy policy from the oil industry. I hope the bill is passed by the Senate?
How is the renewable energy funding going to work? According to the New York Times, tbd.
House Democrats offered little clue on Thursday about how they would channel the money from oil producers into alternative and renewable energies. The bill specifies that the money will go to a reserve, which is essentially an accounting device to offset the cost of separate legislation aimed at promoting other sources of energy and efficiency.
The headline was widely covered, but this key detail wasn’t. Good on the NYT for answering the logical question. One of my concerns is that D policy will be beholden to the Corn lobby instead, and alt energy envestment will flow into the ongoing boondoggle which is corn ethanol.