A lawmaker is fighting to get a $2 million tax break for energy-efficient power plants through the House after her initial proposal was defeated in the Senate last month.
Rep. Lucy Mason, R-1, says she is trying to encourage the implementation of combined heat and power, or CHP, systems. CHP technology produces both electricity and steam from a single location, recovering heat that normally would be wasted in an electricity generator and saving the fuel that would otherwise be used to produce heat or steam in a separate unit.
The United States Combined Heat and Power Association said CHP systems commonly have efficiencies of at least 70 percent — meaning only 30 percent of the energy generated from the fuel is wasted — more than doubling the typical 30-percent efficiency of non-CHP systems.
“With impending vulnerabilities in the available power supplies for electricity, we need to implement efficient sources of power to increase reliability in case of emergency outages,” she says.
The tax credit was added to S1323 April 12 in the House Appropriations P Committee as a strike-everything amendment. The proposal would allow up to $2 million a year in cumulative tax credits in 2008 and 2009 to individuals or companies that generate power via a CHP system that has a fuel efficiency of at least 70 percent. The credit is capped at $500,000 per taxpayer.
The tax credit would be equal to the total kilowatt hours of electricity produced multiplied by 1.5 cents or horsepower hours of power produced multiplied by 1.1 cents.
Ms. Mason’s original bill, H2427, passed the House March 15 by a 43-12 vote, but was defeated 4-5 March 30 in the Senate Finance Committee.
In order for S1323 to receive a vote by the full House of Representatives, it must be approved by the Rules Committee. However, Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Robson, R-20, says he won’t hear the bill — or several dozen others — because it contains an appropriation. Such matters, he said, will be addressed in the budget.
Source: the United States Combined Heat and Power Association, uschpa.admgt.com