ENERGY WHITEBOARD
BY NICK JULIANO

The massive budget deal Senate leaders unveiled overnight would reinstate a variety of energy tax extenders for last year and modify credits for nuclear energy and carbon capture projects.

The bill includes a variety of “orphaned” tax extenders that were left out of a 2015 deal to phase out the wind and solar tax credits. The bill allows biomass, geothermal, waste-to-energy and qualified hydro projects to claim the production tax credit for 2017. For technologies including fiber-optic solar, qualified fuel cells and small wind projects that claim the investment tax credit, it will be phased out through 2022, on the same schedule as other solar projects.

The bill also reinstates for 2017 several other tax credits to promote energy efficiency investments and biofuel production, among other technologies.

Nuclear proponents scored a win with a section of the bill that eliminates a 2020 deadline to claim a tax credit for new nuclear power plants. The Vogtle reactors, the only ones under construction in the country, are not expected to be online by then.

The bill also includes language expanding a tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration and enhanced oil recovery that had been sought by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.