Efficient energy bill will save tax dollars
Congress has sent an energy bill to the president. It is likely consumers and businesses in Greensboro will benefit from the energy bill's efficiency components.
The bill includes such measures as tax deductions for commercial purchasers of energy-efficient equipment, tax credits for homeowners who purchase certain energy-efficient appliances and business benefits for using Energy Savings Performance Contracts, which make our nation's half-million federal buildings more efficient without using tax dollars. The improvements pay for themselves over time through guaranteed energy and operational savings. The program allows the government to upgrade aging buildings while maintaining or reducing budget expenditures.
A recent Department of Energy study reports that U.S. industry, which uses more than half of our energy resources, wastes at least 20 percent of the energy it uses. That's worth nearly $19 billion.
When the bill becomes law, the energy efficiency provisions it contains could lead to an estimated 1.2 million new jobs in manufacturing, construction, technology and other industries, according to a recent manufacturing industry study. The legislation has taken more than 10 years to craft -- and in light of rising energy costs, it's time that energy efficiency becomes the pillar of the nation's energy strategy.
Jeffrey Morgan
Greensboro
Comments (3)
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Morgan writes/sounds as though he works for Exxon, one of our "representitives" in Congress, or a lobbying group which derives its income from working the one on behalf of the other. The piece itself follows exactly the rule for a good press release;"accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." Wonder why he didn't mention the continued subsidies for the development of new fossil fuel deposits in the USA, including the continued devastation in the western part of the country on government land, or the expanded scope of exploration in the Alaska wilderness, or the lack of meaningful government guidelines calling for increased fuel efficiency in our automobiles and an increase in the support of public transportation? The part he so glowingly lauds is great, but where in the bill is any real effort to achieve independance from our own and foreign fossil fuel supplies?
Posted on August 3, 2005 9:50 AM
Ken, One does not eat an elephant in one bite.
Posted on August 3, 2005 1:50 PM
This bill is a symptom of what's wrong in this country. It's basically a pork ridden piece of corporate welfare. At best it nibbles the ears of the elephant. 10 years in the making and this is the best they could do?
Posted on August 3, 2005 9:38 PM