Congress Rewards Oil Companies at the Expense of Alternative Energy

Melissa Lafsky of Discover Magazine's Reality Base blog has posted an interesting article about how Congressional Republicans have blocked all attempts to eliminate $18 billion in tax breaks for oil companies (at a time of record profits and high oil prices), while at the same time preventing all attempts to increase tax breaks for alternative energy providers. In fact, the Senate voted to extend alternative energy tax breaks, but only for one year.

And when alternative energy supporters tried to provide funding for alternative energy tax credits by closing a tax loophole for hedge-fund managers, Senate Republicans blocked that attempt as well.

Eliminating tax breaks for alternative energy at this stage would be devastating to the fledgling market and hurt consumers and businesses who are trying to do the right thing by investing in alternative energy. Also, the American Wind Energy Association predicts that up to 116,000 jobs would be lost in the wind power industry alone if the alternative energy tax credits expire.