Earth Equity News

'Dirty Fuels' Profit by Bailout Bill's Tax Breaks for Renewable Energy. By Julie Cart, LATimes, October 4, 2008. "The renewable-energy tax incentives tucked into the financial bailout package passed by the House on Friday include billions of dollars in breaks for old-fashioned fossil-fuel processes such as liquefying coal and squeezing petroleum out of sand and rock... Critics of the measures note that the breaks run counter to the carbon-reduction message Congress intended when it vowed to bankroll clean, renewable technology. And a substantial portion of the tax breaks go to energy companies already flush with record oil profits. 'This is deeply offensive that they would attach this massive lobby goodie bag to a bill,' said Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen, a Washington-based public interest organization. 'This is a gravy train. The American people are suffering here, and oil companies are getting a tax break. Not even clean energy. This is not a way to make laws'... The provisions are found in the complicated tax-extenders legislation tacked on by the Senate after the House rejected the original bailout package. Although House members were adamant that the overall tax provisions remain revenue-neutral, the add-ons will cost taxpayers more than $100 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Managers in the Senate said the energy provisions were needed to make the bailout more palatable to some Western members."