WASHINGTON D.C. – This week, U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) introduced the Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act. This legislation would help the clean energy industry create good-paying jobs and recover from the COVID-driven economic downturn.
Here’s what environmental advocates and industry experts are saying in support of the bill:
Solar Energy Industries Association
“If passed, direct pay will help unlock financing to create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs building clean energy infrastructure at the utility scale. Many projects have stalled due to the Covid pandemic. This policy is an important step toward economic growth and job creation and we look forward to working with the Senate on this critical issue and others that are essential to our country’s clean energy future.”
-Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO
American Clean Power Association
“As we rebuild from COVID-19, this direct pay bill is an essential down payment to fix the constrained tax equity markets and ensure companies both large and small can continue to embrace clean energy solutions and create jobs. The last year has been challenging for everyone. Smaller developers, in particular, have struggled to secure tax equity partnerships, putting otherwise viable projects in jeopardy due to capital constraints. The availability of a 100 percent direct pay option is crucial for clean energy deployment. Tax equity scarcity is a long term challenge.”
-Heather Zichal, CEO
Bloom Energy
“Bloom Energy thanks Senator Carper for his leadership in supporting future investment in green jobs and the development and deployment of clean energy technology. Hundreds of Delawareans in Bloom’s Newark, Delaware manufacturing facility are at the forefront of accelerating the transition to a clean energy future and creating a more resilient energy system through the production of hydrogen-powered fuel cells and electrolyzers that produce renewable hydrogen.”
-Paul Wilkins, Vice President for Federal Policy
Xcel Energy
“This legislation will accelerate the clean energy transition and allow us to build more renewable energy while keeping customer bills low.”
-Ben Fowke, Chairman and CEO
American Council on Renewable Environmental (ACORE)
“Renewable energy tax credits are proven tools to catalyze investment, accelerate deployment and lower delivered cost. Many renewable developers rely on tax equity transactions to monetize credits and build projects. But today there are important constraints on the availability of tax equity due to the economic fallout of the pandemic at a time of growing demand to fund new projects. When tax equity isn’t available, those projects—and all the good-paying jobs that come with them—can’t move forward. The Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act tackles this challenge by providing a direct pay option for monetizing credits so that critical renewable energy projects can continue to be built in spite of a COVID-constrained tax equity market.”
-Gregory Wetstone, President and CEO
Apex Clean Energy
“The Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act will help accelerate the transition to clean energy by providing a 100% direct pay option for projects eligible for the PTC and ITC. In turn, these projects will provide new opportunities for well-paid jobs, create a more reliable electric grid infrastructure, and bring new sources of revenue to impacted communities throughout the United States.”
-Mark Goodwin, CEO
Environmental Defense Fund
“Before the pandemic, America’s clean energy jobs were outpacing job growth in the economy as a whole, and with Senator Carper’s direct payment bill we can ensure this critical industry once again leads our country toward strong, sustainable growth. Providing the upfront resources renewable energy projects need, including the full benefits of existing tax credits, will ensure developers are able to continue projects already in the pipeline and momentum continues for future expansion of the industry.”
-Elizabeth Gore, Senior Vice President, Political Affairs
National Wildlife Federation
“Getting Americans back to work is a crucial part of our comeback from the COVID-19 crisis, and the clean energy sector needs to be at the forefront of our economic and jobs recovery. We can confront both the economic and climate crises together, and the Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act will provide companies two years of flexibility to take advantage of federal incentives that put people back to work so we can continue to act on climate.”
-Shannon Heyck-Williams, Director of Climate and Energy Policy
Advanced Energy Economy
“The Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act is a no-lose proposition for advancing our nation's economic recovery, tapping fast-growing jobs opportunities, and shifting to cleaner, more affordable energy resources. These changes will spur development by smaller businesses that do not have access to Wall Street and ensure that the full value of public credit goes to project development and job creation.”
-Nat Kreamer, CEO
Clean Air Task Force
“Today’s legislation is focused on providing immediate relief from the loss of jobs due to the pandemic. We need direct pay to create jobs today in key decarbonizing industries, such as wind and solar and carbon capture removal and storage. All of these technologies need sustained policy support and incentives to deliver climate action.”
Third Way
“Direct pay is a more efficient way of using the tax code to incentivize job creation and emissions reduction, and an option that Congress should consider extending longer-term for clean energy.”
-Josh Freed, Senior Vice President for Climate and Energy
Sunnova
“A refundable option for the solar investment tax credit will be a catalyst that supercharges the residential solar industry’s ability to create more good-paying solar jobs, meet state clean energy deployment goals, respond to consumer demand for a cleaner and more reliable energy system and contribute to national climate goals. This bill will ensure that savings opportunities and other economic benefits accrue to customers, and it will help ensure the reliability of capital to the solar industry at a critical time in the country’s transition to a cleaner energy system, especially after a difficult year defined by a global pandemic.”
-John Berger, CEO
Pattern Energy
“By making a direct payment available for renewable energy tax credits, the Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act keeps America on track towards reaching a decarbonized electric grid by 2035 as the economy recovers.”
-Mike Garland, CEO
Intersect Power
“By allowing refundability, this legislation would help create hundreds of thousands of jobs immediately and much more efficiently fulfill the original intent of renewable tax credits. The inefficient way that federal tax credits are provided to the renewable energy industry has created an enormous backlog of solar and wind projects that are stalled-out—this is a big drag on America’s clean energy economy. The United States is not getting the renewable energy jobs that our government has already seen fit to fund, customers are losing out on access to affordable clean energy, and time continues to slip away in addressing the climate crisis.”
-Sheldon Kimber, Co-founder and CEO
Clearway Energy Group
“Senator Carper’s Save America’s Clean Energy Jobs Act will directly accelerate renewable energy projects that were put on hold due to a shortage of financing for renewable project tax credits that emerged in the past year. Providing a 100% direct pay option for projects qualified to receive the PTC and ITC will allow projects that couldn’t otherwise move forward to be built, creating jobs in the near-term and protecting our climate in the long-term.”
-Craig Cornelius, CEO
8Minute Solar Energy
“Our industry has witnessed a steep drop in investor tax equity that typically uses the investment tax credit, slowing the financing and construction of advanced solar projects—and delaying jobs that would have been in place but for COVID. Senator Carper's bill addresses this tax equity problem by offering a refundable tax credit to jumpstart project construction and get more than 200,000 skilled workers back on the job.”
-Tom Buttgenbach, Founder and CEO
