Could a GOP Congress Back Renewable Energy?

当共和党在11月中期选举中获得了大部分的大会后，共和党在参议院获得了大多数时，煤炭股集会。弗吉尼亚州的弗里吉亚的alpha自然资源领导者，截至12月5日，截至12月23日，截至12月23日，截至12月23日。煤炭部门的良好政治气候均达到22.12％alternative energy? Not necessarily. Republicans, especially those at the state and local levels, are increasingly supporting solar and other renewable energy sources as consistent with their political beliefs.

“It’s not so simple as Democrats are for [renewable energy], and Republicans are against it,” says Shayle Kann, Boston-based director of GTM Research, the analysis, advisory and consulting division of Greentech Media, a research firm focused on the renewables industry. “There has been a pretty meaningful growth of conservative support for rooftop solar, especially. The idea is that customers should have the right to choose where their power comes from, and that there should be support of policy and regulations that favor the development of third-party-owned or customer-owned solar power.”

KANN代表GOP指向倡导太阳能的基层组的形成。2013年，前共和党国会议员Barry Goldwater Jr.成为告诉公用事业太阳能的董事长不会在亚利桑那杀死（托斯）;此后，牙笛将其活动扩展到科罗拉多州，路易斯安那州，北卡罗来纳州，南卡罗来纳州，犹他州和威斯康星州。

That same year the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots joined forces with the local chapter of the Sierra Club, a major environmental group, to form the Buford, Georgia–based Green Tea Coalition, which pushes for adoption of renewables, in part to challenge major utilities’ market power. Co-founder Debbie Dooley has said that she’s working with like-minded solar activists in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

A2014年1月由PEW研究中心调查是一家以华盛顿州的思维坦克表示，美国的热门支持甚至是共和党人的替代能源的资金。调查显示，73％的美国人 - 包括58％的共和党人 - 希望看到更加美联的太阳能和氢气的联邦支持。

This groundswell likely has much to do with the changing economics of clean energy and the public’s growing familiarity with alternative sources that are working their way into the power mix. In 2013 renewable power capacity expanded at its fastest rate ever,根据巴黎的国际能源机构. Renewables made up almost 22 percent of the global energy mix that year, compared with 18 percent in 2007. The IEA also found that investment in new power capacity reached $250 billion in 2013.

大部分增加的摄取，特别是在太阳能下，源于较低的价格：2009年第三季度和2014年中期之间，薄膜光伏太阳能电池产生的电力成本从每兆瓦至149美元的225美元降至149美元。2014年，太阳能模块的平均成本仅为每兆瓦仅78美分，而1976年与79.42美元。

但GTM的萤石notes that the grass roots advocacy for renewables hasn’t been as evident in Congress — yet. “Partially, it’s just because there haven’t been as many policy debates that relate to this [on the federal level],” he says. “It’ll be interesting to see the extent to which that does come to the forefront, and whether the grass roots support does actually impact the federal politicians.”

联邦辩论与可再生能源的税收委员会和其延伸问题相关。由密歇根共和党议员戴夫营赞助的税收增加法案，延长了2014年底的几亚博篮球怎么下串个可再生能源税收抵免。它在十二月初之前通过了这家大道的支撑。

Gregg Benson, a New York–based attorney in the tax department of law firm Kaye Scholer, says the details of the Tax Increase Prevention Act can be interpreted as reassuring or less than heartening for renewable power: It’s a good sign the bill included the renewables-focused tax credits but somewhat disconcerting that they weren’t extended for another year.

The industry will closely follow Congress’s movement on the extension of another tax break: the business energy investment tax credit (ITC), which offers incentives for solar power as well as wind, biomass, geothermal electric and other clean energy sources. The solar ITC is slated to step down from 30 percent to a permanent 10 percent at the end of 2016.

Ken Johnson, vice president of communications for the Solar Energy Industries Association and former deputy chief of staff, communications director and chief spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says pulling back the tax breaks would harm the solar industry, which pumps about $15 billion into the U.S. economy each year, according to the Washington-based SEIA. His group will be boosting efforts to educate congressional Republicans and drum up support for alternative energy.

“We’re going to roll up our sleeves, we’re going to blanket Capitol Hill, and we’re going to let Republicans know what the investment tax credit has meant for America, and what it will mean going forward,” Johnson says.