Yesterday, the Senate passed H.R. 6049 by a decisive 93 to 2 vote. This is great news, because H.R. 6049 will extend the renewable energy tax credits that were set to expire on December 31st of this year. The bill provides $17 billion as tax incentives for investment in renewable energy.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D – NM), chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said in a press statement, “These incentives will play a critical role in promoting clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency, and in turn reducing our reliance on conventional fuels, promoting a more secure energy supply and combating global warming. Equally important, these tax credits will create high-paying jobs and reduce energy costs for all Americans.”

Unfortunately, the bill also includes provisions for oil shale, tar sands, and coal-to-liquids development, which of course are fossil fuels and will therefore contribute to global warming while delaying our conversion to a renewable energy society. But let’s look on the bright side: at least all those renewable energy projects that were officially stalled because of the threat of the tax incentives expiring will hopefully now be back on track.

The Tax Extenders bill must still go back to the House (who passed a similar bill in May) and then be signed into law by the President. The White House, for its part, appears to have already come out in support of the bill. According to Senator Bingaman, “We’ve been trying for nearly two years to prevent these [renewable energy] incentives from lapsing, and I believe we finally have the bipartisan, bicameral support to finally get the job done. And I’m very pleased that the White House said today that it supports passage of this legislation.”

But passing the Senate version of the bill through the House will apparently not be the easiest sell, so there is still considerable room for doubt that the bill will actually land on Bush’s desk before Congress closes up shop for the year. Stay tuned…

At a campaign stop last week in Maumee, OH, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) talked to a young 1Sky campaigner about energy policy.  The question was about the Obama/Biden ticket's position on coal. Biden answered by defending his record of support for renewable energy, and then he said this:

"No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them over there make ‘em clean because they’re killing you."

The "over there" he's referring to is China. That's a remarkable statement from the potential veep and one that begs for further explanation. Biden has been mum since he said this, but allow me take a stab at what he likely meant.

On their Web site, Obama/Biden say this about coal:

"Obama’s Department of Energy will enter into public private partnerships to develop five “first-of-a-kind” commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology."

That policy position is at odds with Biden's statement. Presumably, Biden is saying no new coal plants here, period, CCS-ready or not. China, he seems to be saying, can't be stopped from building new coal fired power plants so what we ought to do is develop the technology to make them run cleaner.

This logic is inline with what Thomas Friedman has been saying: The next revolution will be energy technology, so we need to own the innovation and then export it. That's the way to help the American economy and lead by example.

Friedman and Biden certainly are right about the need for innovation. The question is why the focus on coal, which we know will never be clean? Those who say that it can be tout Carbon, Capture and Storage (CCS), a plan to capture carbon emissions from power stations and bury them underground. The technology won’t be ready for at least another twenty years, too late to save the climate. Yet the vague promises of CCS are being used to justify building new coal-fired plants. These plants will spew out enormous amounts of CO2 pollution for at least the next twenty years and probably during their whole 40-year lifetime. In short, any new coal fired power plant will contribute massively to the climate crisis.

Hopefully, this topic will come up in the veep debate, scheduled for Oct. 2. But don't count on it. According to Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group, only four percent of the questions asked during the primary debates were on energy and the environment. Only three questions touched on renewable resources and conservation, including one asking if candidates used compact fluorescent bulbs. Seriously.

Given America's energy problems and the threats from global climate change, the inclusion of conversation about coal's future and what Biden exactly meant should be part of the upcoming debate. You can email your Congressional representative here and tell them what you think of coal.