Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has announced that on Wednesday his committee will mark up his energy bill, the “Clean Energy for America Act," which ends tax breaks for fossil fuels while incentivizing the use of clean energy proposals.
A “markup” is the legislative process where Committee Members debate and amend a certain piece of legislation.
Wyden’s legislation offers tax incentives to produce clean energy in the United States by providing incentives for electricity, transportation, commercial buildings and energy conservation. And while most energy sources qualify for the incentives in the bill, cleaner sources will benefit more.
“The cleaner the fuel, the bigger the credit,” Wyden said when he introduced his bill in April.
Wednesday’s markup promises to be a lengthy one since Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee do not agree with many of the proposals in Wyden’s bill, and they are expected to offer numerous amendments to change the legislation.
One issue Republicans could have with Wyden’s bill is that it ends tax incentives for fossil fuels.
Among its changes, the bill repeals preferential incentives for fossil fuel companies, including expensing of intangible drilling costs, percentage depletion, deductions for tertiary injectants, and credits for enhanced oil recovery, marginal oil wells, coal gasification, and advanced coal projects.
While it is likely that the legislation will pass the Committee, it is not clear when the bill will be the subject of a vote on the Senate floor.
The text of the legislation can be found here.
The section-by-section summary of the bill can be found here.
The Joint Committee on Taxation description of the bill can be found here.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimate for the bill’s cost can be found here.
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