It took me a while to find the new energy bill. Many articles on the passage of it, but not a one actually one I could find gave a link to the bill. Maybe they'd rather have us read their take on it, than read it ourselves?
H.R.6899
Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h6899_ih.xmlThere's a lot of stuff in here and I'm now a lawyer. All I know going in is that the media prepped me to think the Dems caved in, allowing offshore drilling, and that there's supposedly some good renewable energy stuff in there.
The first thing I came to is a requirement for electric utility companies, that a certain percentage of the power they sell must be renewable energy. The bill has a specific definition of what is renewable energy and I think it's pretty good. One thing I like about the definition is that new hydro-electric plants are NOT considered renewable. Only increasing the efficiency of existing hydropower is acceptable. (no, nukular is not considered renewable).
the percentage of power that must be renewable starts out at 2.75% in 2010 and increases to 15% by 2020. This is very doable and would spark the economy. However I would note that according to Wikipedia we currently as a nation use renewables for 2.4% of our energy production so I would guess that by 2010 we would reach 2.75% without this legislation. still it's good to see some mandates.
this part looks juicy, increasing tax credits for residential solar energy:
(b) Maximum Credit for Solar Electric Property-
(1) IN GENERAL- Section 25D(b)(1)(A) is amended by striking `$2,000' and inserting `$4,000'.
(2) CONFORMING AMENDMENT- Section 25D(e)(4)(A)(i) is amended by striking `$6,667' and inserting `$13,333'.
more soon
here's the link, have at it:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h6899_ih.xml