New bill includes solar tax breaks

New bill includes solar tax breaks

Aug 3 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Andy Lenderman The Santa Fe New Mexican

Homeowners can get a $2,000 tax credit for buying a solar-powered electric system or water heater, courtesy of the federal energy bill that recently passed Congress, a solar-power advocate said Tuesday.

Tax breaks for people who want to power their homes with clean energy were some of the highlights of the bill discussed at a renewable-energy conference Tuesday at the Hilton of Santa Fe.

But Ben Luce of the New Mexico Coalition for Clean and Affordable Energy said the tax break must be larger to make solar power more affordable for consumers. The cost of a solar-powered electrical system for a home -a photovoltaic system, in industry terms -can cost $15,000, he said.

"It's just not large enough," Luce said of the tax break. His group will push for a $7,000 state tax credit in the 2006 Legislature. That plus other incentives "will essentially make solar affordable for people," Luce said. "So solar is coming." U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also covered the solar-tax breaks when he spoke to the conference over lunch. Bingaman mentioned credits for contractors who build energy-efficient homes, and breaks for consumers who buy certain appliances as part of the 1,725-page bill that passed the Senate on Friday.

"So these are not all that we had wanted for tax credits in terms of renewable energy," Bingaman said. "But they help and they are significant, and I hope they are taken advantage of."

Bingaman is the ranking minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He covered "three areas where we fell short -where we missed a great opportunity to make progress, and we did not."

Congress did not approve a renewable-energy portfolio. This would have mandated that the country's power providers produce a certain percentage of electricity from wind or solar power, for example. Congress did not approve higher standards for vehicle-fuel efficiency. Congress did not pass requirements to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. But Bingaman supports the bill overall. He will be in Albuquerque on Monday with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., where President Bush is scheduled to sign the bill. Bingaman was asked by an audience member why Congress did not pass higher gas-mileage standards.

He said the large automobile manufacturers are a very major lobby against that.

Bingaman closed by saying the country needs to deal with energy issues more often. The previous energy-policy bill was passed in 1992.

"We don't have the luxury of doing business in that way going forward," Bingaman said. "We need to have this issue before each Congress."

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