"We need to ensure both the black and green economies have access to capital, can create jobs and support contractors and deliver the appropriate energy to their consumer! The wealthy can purchase the oil and gas.
The BOP market with 1 billion people living on $1 a day can NEVER afford oil and therefore green technologies make sense to empower this market to go green, be sustainable and grow from the 'bottom up'. " Ambassador Hope
fROM Sunlight Foundation
Last month during the State of the Union, President Obama said: “a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change.”
This statement was met with mighty applause, but it looks like the alternative energy industry and their lobbyists won’t be at a loss in any proposed corporate tax reform. New analysis from the Sunlight Foundation shows that the administration has repeatedly gone to bat for the tax provisions sought by alternative energy lobbyists.
Using data from Capital IQ by Business Insider and lobbying disclosure filings, Sunlight examines the lobbying activities undertaken by wind energy producers / providers NextEra Energy and Xcel Energy in an effort to maintain their low tax rate (at 1.74 percent and 1.78 percent, respectively).
Highlights from senior writer Paul Blumenthal’s report include:
- The teams assembled by NextEra and Xcel include lobbyists with years of tax experience, both on the Hill and in the Executive Branch.
- In the fourth quarter of 2010, six out of the 15 outside lobbying firms hired by NextEra and Xcel listed energy tax provisions as the sole issue they lobbied on, while six other firms lobbied on a mix of issues including taxes.
- This fall the administration held meetings with alternative energy lobbyists including those from the low-tax rate NextEra and Xcel. In October, Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the President on energy and climate change, held meetings with NextEra’s vice president for government relations. And in January and September, Zichal held meetings with Xcel Energy lobbyists John O’Donnell and Stephen Plevniak.
- The NextEra and Xcel lobbyists focused the majority of their fourth quarter 2010 work around extending a grant program administered by the Treasury Department that provides a 30 percent subsidy of capital costs to new construction for wind turbine construction. They were quite successful. The tax reform compromise package worked out between the administration and congressional Republicans in December included an extension of this policy.
Visit the Sunlight blog to read our full analysis.
Please let me know if you have any questions, I’d be happy to put you in touch with our lobbying experts.
Thanks,
Liz
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Liz Bartolomeo
Communications Manager
Sunlight Foundation
lbartolomeo@sunlightfoundation.com
O: 202-742-1520 x226
C: 202-255-2677
Queen of Green AFRICA -investing in 2,166 green communities to transform the lives of a generation of orphans, widows and the economy
Queen of Green is a global green cooperative brand,a network of green stakeholders from 29 diverse sectors who share a common goal of transforming their world. We unite 29 stakeholder groups to cooperate and collaborate to implement 14 Socialdevelopment Programs that will improve the quality of life for 200 million of the world's poor. Ambassador Hope developed the new Foreign Empowerment Policy for President Obama, Organizing for America and the G20 leaders. Ambassador Hope has developed a Social Investment Portfolio of 14 programs to empower the poor in 70+ countries. She passionately believes in empowering the talent and skills of the poorest of the poor to become green and sustainable. By integrating the development process to ensure energy, food, and health security is combined with education and micro-enterprises for economic security it is possible to mobilize millions of citizens to be the change they want to see in the world.
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