U.S. Vice President Joe Biden Calls for Congress to Extend Treasury Grants for Renewable Projects

This past week, Vice President Joe Biden added his voice to the growing number of those calling for Congress to extend its Treasury Grant program for Renewable Energy projects. 

Keeping in line with Biden's White House Report, which touts successes in cleantech innovation [pdf] stemming from the Recovery Act, the Vice President's call for Treasury Grant extension has significant economical implications:

1. Biden claims the grant program is responsible for the creation of over 12,000 new jobs and nearly 4,000 renewable energy projects in the last year. 
    
2. The American Wind Association claims the program has created and/or preserved nearly 40,000 jobs nationwide -- when including indirect job creation such as manufacturing. 
    
3. It also means keeping jobs within the county, as tax credits will keep companies from manufacturing elsewhere. 
    
4. The call for much needed (according to some) emphasis on technological innovation within the energy industry could be answered -- especially considering the program has provided $5 billion in funding since its inception. 

Tax credits for renewable energy are a way of leveling the playing field for renewable projects in competition with the fossil fuel industry. It's no secret that the fossil fuel industry reaps huge subsidies -- in 2009  to the tune of six times what renewable energy received. 

So Vice President Biden's call is an important one.

“We have to build new industries that build things here in the United States of America,” Biden said. “And so if you build a wind turbine or solar panels or advanced batteries, and manufacture them right here in the United States, you get a 30 percent tax credit.”

“I can understand an argument about tax credits for investment abroad. But it baffles me why we wouldn't want to offer tax credits for people to manufacture things here in the United States of America."