CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

On Tuesday, The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049) failed to pass a procedural vote to limit debate and proceed to consideration of the bill. The vote count was 52-44, 8 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a potential filibuster. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) reserved the right to bring the bill up again at a later date, possibly following the Senate's Fourth of July break.

"The longer these extensions are delayed, the more workers are shed and renewable energy projects are undermined."

The issues bringing the clean energy tax extensions to a stalemate have to do with how H.R. 6049 will be paid for. Democratic leadership in both houses of Congress have said that extensions must be paid by a decrease somewhere else in the federal budget. Republican leadership has said that tax credit extensions don't fit that rule because they are in fact a stimulus and have gotten behind extension legislation deviod of offsets.

“The longer these extensions are delayed, the more workers are shed and renewable energy projects are undermined," said Scott Sklar, President of strategic energy policy and market firm The Stella Group. "Time for Congress to get off the stalemate and move the extensions which over ten years cost the same as one month of the Iraq War.”