Today the House Committee on Ways and Means put a likely end to the production tax credit expiration for nuclear energy by approving H.R.5879 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the credit for production from advanced nuclear power facilities. Since new facilities will be public-private partnerships, and public entities can't be taxed, this was creating a lot of confusion and that meant if nothing was done, the incentive for a company to help build an expensive clean energy plant would be gone. 

Let's face it, if you didn't get a rebate for a home solar installation and a way to force other utility customers to buy energy from you at the same price a utility sells it, those would never be purchased either. It wouldn't make sense in the short term and you might be dead in the long.

If you are not an environmentalist, you know, of course, that a credit is not a subsidy. A subsidy is what wind and solar get - cash money to do something. A credit is simply not having to pay taxes on money you spent or getting the costs back over time.  Like solar companies get. The reason this was extended is because they didn't want to penalize the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia or the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina, when the administration has thrown away tens of billions of dollars on solar companies that have failed. 

This was a bipartisan agreement - no one wanted to be against clean energy or jobs seven weeks before an election - but it was also a win for the future and for science. And it carried no risk, even for a Democrat like Representative Earl Blumenauer. What are environmentalists going to do in retaliation, vote for Donald Trump in November?

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Rep. Rice, Tom [R-SC-7]
Rep. Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR-3]
Rep. Simpson, Michael K. [R-ID-2]
Rep. Price, Tom [R-GA-6]  
Rep. Marchant, Kenny [R-TX-24]