Senate calls hearing on energy tax policy

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing on the “outdated” energy tax code and proposals to reform and improve it.

The Sept. 17 hearing will be led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who became chairman of the Finance Committee earlier this year and has committed to comprehensively reforming the entire tax code since he became chairman.

{mosads}Wyden was chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee before taking the helm at Finance, and has long supported tax credits that incentivize wind, solar, biofuels and other alternative energy sources. They expired at the end of last year.

Tax incentives for alternative energy like wind are popular among most Democrats, who see them as a way to help those industries develop. Most Republicans see the credits as a way of picking winners and losers in energy.

The finance panel passed a package of tax incentives that included many alternative energy credits in April, but it has not passed the fully Senate. 

At a conference in Las Vegas last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised that legislation to reinstate renewable energy tax credits would come to the Senate floor for a vote by the end of the year. He said the credits “are being blocked by Republicans in Congress.”

The witnesses at the hearing will include former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), former Lockheed Martin chief executive officer Norman Augustine, Tufts University economics Professor Gilbert Metcalf, Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Ethan Zindler and Heritage Foundation research fellow David Kreutzer.