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April 12, 2010
The Honorable Max Baucus
Senate Finance Committee
SD-219
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Charles E. Grassley
Senate Finance Committee
SD-219
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley:
Congress has an opportunity to make American manufacturers more competitive and to create jobs by creating incentives to expand the use of efficient combined heat and power (CHP) and clean recycled energy. The nation’s industrial sector is the engine for wealth creation and economic growth and manufacturing investments and benefits the entire economy as every industrial job supports three jobs elsewhere. For this reason America needs an industrial efficiency policy now.
We urge you to enhance America’s manufacturing productivity by expanding the overly limited tax incentives for CHP and recycled energy. Recycled energy, which uses the waste energy associated with various industrial processes to create emissions—free and clean power, now receives no tax benefits, and CHP obtains only a 10—percent investment tax credit for the first 15 megawatts of a project limited to 50 megawatts in size. We urge Congress to pass the bipartisan S. 1639 (Sens. Bingaman and Snowe), H.R. 4455 (Reps. Thompson and Linder), and Rep. Inslee’s H.R. 4144, which would remove the credit’s limitation to smaller projects by applying it to a project’s first 25 megawatts. We also ask that Congress pass Rep. Tonko’s H.R. 4751, which would provide a 30—percent investment tax credit for highly efficient CHP projects (those with efficiencies above 70 percent) and recycled energy.
In today’s global economy, American manufacturing must be as productive and efficient as possible. An expanded investment tax credit would spur investments in manufacturing competitiveness within the steel, aluminum, glass, chemical, and other energy—intensive industries. It would encourage near—term, shovel—ready projects that create and maintain thousands of jobs within those industries as well as in the manufacturing, installing, and operating of CHP equipment.
Such investments in U.S. industries also would increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution. The expanded credit provides a key incentive for investing in industrial efficiency. According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a large—scale expansion of CHP could provide 20 percent of generating capacity by 2030, generate $234 billion in new investment, and create nearly 1 million new highly—skilled, technical jobs throughout the U.S. CO2 emissions could be reduced by more than 800 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking more than half the current passenger vehicles off the road.
Thank you for your consideration of this incentive to spur American manufacturing competitiveness.
Sincerely,
Capstone Turbines Corporation
Caterpillar
Cummins Power Generation
The Dow Chemical Company
Fluor
GE Energy
Ingersoll Rand
Libbey Glass Inc.
LS Power
Mosaic Company
Ormat
Nevada Energy
PPG Industries
Primary Energy
Saint-Gobain Containers
Solar Turbines
United Technologies Corporation
Veolia Energy North America Holdings
ACCO Engineered Systems (California, Washington, Idaho, Nevada)
ACP Sheet Metal Company (Oklahoma)
Alphabet Energy (California)
Avalon Consulting, Inc. (Illinois)
Barnes and Dodge Inc. (Kansas)
Basin Electric (North Dakota)
BHP Energy (Ohio)
Butters-Fetting Co., Inc. (Wisconsin)
Calnetix Power Solution, Inc. (Florida)
Cascade Energy Group (Washington)
Charles P. Blouin Inc. (New Hampshire)
Circle “R” Mechanical, Inc. (Indiana)
Climate Energy (Massachusetts)
DCO Energy (New Jersey)
Dresser-Rand/Aircogen (Massachusetts)
Dry Coolers Inc. (Michigan)
Earthwise Energy Technologies (Rhode Island)
E-Finity Distributed Generation (Pennsylvania)
ECR International (New York)
Endurant Energy LLC (Illinois)
Enercon Engineering Inc. (Illinois)
Energenic LLC (New Jersey)
Energy Solutions Center (Washington, D.C.)
Ernest D. Menold, Inc (Pennsylvania)
Five Star Electric Motors (Texas)
GEM Inc. (Ohio and Georgia)
Hyvac Inc. (Florida)
KGRA Energy Corporation (Illinois)
Interstate Power Solutions (Missouri)
Lewis and Lambert Industries, Inc. (Texas)
Matherly Mechanical Contractors, Inc. (Oklahoma)
Melrose Metal Products (California)
Midwest Fabricators, LLC (Oklahoma)
National Heating & Ventilating (New Mexico)
New Loop Energy (Illinois)
Office Power Energy Solutions (New York)
Pumps and Service (New Mexico and Texas)
Reagan Equipment (Florida and Louisiana)
Recycled Energy Development (Illinois)
Regatta Solutions Inc. (California)
RHP Mechanical Systems (Nevada)
RSP Systems (New York)
Rudolph Libbe Companies (Ohio and Michigan)
Sheet Metal Engineering, Inc. (Iowa)
South Jersey Energy Solutions (New Jersey)
Stromberg Metal Works Inc. (Maryland)
Tal-Mar Custom Metal (Illinois)
Turbine Air Systems (Texas)
Turbosteam (Massachusetts)
Tweet/Garot (Wisconsin)
Unison Solutions (Iowa)
Westside Mechanical Sales (Illinois)
Zeledyne (Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee)
American Chemistry Council
American Forest & Paper Association
The Association of Union Constructors
Electricity Consumers Resource Council
Glass Manufacturing Industry Council
International District Energy Association
Mechanical Contractors Association of America
National Council for Advanced Manufacturing
National Electrical Contractors Association
Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association
Steel Founders’ Society of America
U.S. Clean Heat and Power Association
Alliance to Save Energy
Apollo Alliance
Association of State Energy Research
Business Council for Sustainable Energy
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Climate Institute
Energy Future Coalition
Environmental Law and Policy Center
Environment America
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
National Association of State Energy Officials
Northeast-Midwest Institute
Pew Environment Group
Sheet Metal Workers International Association
Sierra Club
Technology Transfer Institutions
World Alliance for Decentralized Energy
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