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The House Committee on Ways and Means today passed bipartisan legislation to extend vital tax relief to millions of families, strengthen investment opportunities for American businesses and encourage the production and use of renewable energy. The legislation, H.R. 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008, was introduced by Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) and could be considered by the full House of Representatives as early as next week. H.R. 6049 passed the Committee by a vote of 25-12.

Information.

H.R. 6049 Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008

Summary: H.R. 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008, will provide almost $20 billion of tax incentives for investment in renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects, energy efficiency and conservation. The bill will also extends $27 billion of expiring temporary tax provisions, including the research and development credit, special rules for active financing income, the State and local sales tax deduction, the deduction for out-of-pocket expenses for teachers, and the deduction for qualified tuition expenses. In addition, the bill provides almost $10 billion of additional tax relief for individuals through an expansion of the refundable child tax credit and a new standard deduction for property taxes. The bill would be primarily offset by closing a tax loophole that allows individuals that work for certain offshore corporations, such as hedge fund managers, to defer tax on their compensation and would delay the effective date of a tax benefit that has not yet taken effect for multinational corporations operating overseas.

Live audio and video will be available at the start of the hearing, and can be accessed at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/audio.html

The Committee on Agriculture seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. If in need of special accommodations, please call (202) 225-2171 at least four business days in advance of the event, whenever practicable. Questions with regard to special accommodations in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats and listening devices) may be directed to the Committee as noted above.

Woody biomass refers to wood, branches, and other organic matter from trees and shrubs that can be used as a renewable substitute for fossil fuels in the production of both energy and products. Woody biomass can be an important component in a national renewable electricity standard (RES), a renewable energy feed-in tariff or any other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to learn about the direct linkage between scale and sustainability inherent in the biomass technologies. A good understanding of this relationship is essential for the development of biomass applications that are economically and environmentally sustainable. Compared to fossil fuel deposits, forests are incredibly dynamic systems. They develop within relatively short time periods (tens to thousands of years) and are subject to sudden and unpredictable disturbances from fires, windstorms, and pest infestations. Forests are also complex systems, created and maintained in a state of flux by the innumerable interactions of biota, soils, topography, hydrology, climate, and human communities; but when forest ecosystems are perceived as static pools of market commodities, the door is opened to unsustainable exploitation. Excessive harvesting and bad management practices result in reduced ecosystem services, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and other environmental impacts. They also result in the “boom-and-bust” cycles that have traditionally characterized many timber markets, leading to economic stagnation and reduced quality-of-life in many rural, forest-dependent communities.

Sustainable, appropriately-scaled biomass applications, on the other hand, can reverse this trend, providing forest communities with stable jobs, a local source of renewable energy, and full participation in the stewardship of diverse forest ecosystems. There is a wide array of biomass technologies available across a large range of scales, including thermal applications (wood pellets, “combined heat and power” or CHP), electric generation (steam boilers, gasification, co-firing), liquid transportation fuels (cellulosic ethanol, methanol, renewable diesel), and biobased co-products. Determining what is appropriate in a given location is not a small task. It requires a comprehensive evaluation of many resources in addition to the forest itself, such as infrastructure, available labor, and market demand for energy and products. In addition to these quantifiable resources, local culture and public values will also help determine what is appropriate, as well as the management constraints necessary to ensure biodiverse landscapes, ecological functioning, clean water, recreational opportunities, and the other values and environmental services that society demands. These are the topics that will be addressed at the briefing.

Speakers for this event include:

• Mark Spurr, Legislative Director, International District Energy Association
• Charlie Niebling, Director of Public Affairs, New England Wood Pellet LLC
• Christopher Recchia, Executive Director, Biomass Energy Resource Center
• Lowell Rasmussen, Master of Planning, University of Minnesota Morris
• Marvin Burchfield, Vice President, Decker Energy International, Inc.

This briefing is open to the public and no reservations are required. Please feel free to forward this notice. For more information, contact Jetta Wong at 202-662-1885 (jwong@eesi.org) or Jesse Caputo at 202-662-1882 (jcaputo@eesi.org)

• The Honorable Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator and Director of Foreign Assistance Agency for International Development
• The Honorable Edward P. Lazear, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers, Executive Office of the President

• The Honorable Josette Sheeran, Executive Director, World Food Programme, United Nations
• The Honorable M. Peter McPherson, President, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges

• Robert J. Meyers, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

• Lisa P. Jackson, Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
• Dr. Michael Durham PhD, Officer and Board Member, Institute of Clean Air Companies
• Dr. Steven A. Benson, Senior Research Manager/Advisor, Energy and Environment Research Center, The University of North Dakota
• Dr. Leonard Levin PhD, Technical Executive, Air Quality Health & Risk Assessment, Electric Power Research Institute
• Vickie Patton, Deputy General Counsel, Climate and Air Program, Environmental Defense Fund

• Dr. Linda Greer PhD, Director, Public Health Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Arthur Dungan, President, The Chlorine Institute, Inc.

Climate models allow scientists to understand the dynamics of the climate system and predict the effects of climate change by simulating the interactions of the earth’s oceans, atmosphere, land, and ice. These models assist decisionmakers in developing strategies for adapting to the impacts of climate change.

This hearing will examine the current computing capacity to process models at the regional and local scales, the need for continuous observational data to support the models, and the basic science to support the improvement of the next generation of climate models to meet the needs of decisionmakers. The hearing will focus on developing applications, consumer expectations, and network operation.

• Dr. Alexander E. (Sandy) MacDonald Director, Earth System Research Laboratory, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Dr. James J. Hack, Director, National Center for Computational Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Dr. Daniel A. Reed, Scalable and Multicore Computing Strategist, Microsoft
• Dr. Edward S. Sarachik, Co-Director, Center for Science in the Earth System, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, University of Washington
• Bruce K. Carlisle, Assistant Director, Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management
• Dr. John Walsh, President’s Professor of Climate Change, Chief Scientist, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Witnesses

• Stephen Johnson, administrator, U.S. EPA
• Susan Dudley, administrator, Federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Rogene Henderson, chairwoman, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

Panel II

• Francesca Grifo, senior scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Michael Goo, climate legislative director, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Roger McClellan, adviser, Toxicology and Human Health Risk Analysis
• Alan Charles Raul, partner, Sidley Austin LLP.

As companies look for low-cost ways to reduce global warming emissions in a carbon-constrained future, many are finding that energy efficiency holds the greatest promise and results.

Accordingly, Thursday’s hearing will examine the potential role of complementary efficiency policies, particularly for the electric power sector, in promoting low-cost emission reductions under a federal greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system.

• Paul DeCotis, Deputy Secretary of Energy, State of New York
• Dian Grueneich, Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission
• Steven Kline, Vice President for Environment and Federal Affairs, Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation
• Richard Cowart, Director, Regulatory Assistance Project
• George Sakellaris, President and CEO, Ameresco, Inc.
• William Fay, Director, Energy Efficient Codes Coalition

Testimony on the Department of Energy’s decision to restructure the FutureGen program and obtain information about the elements of the original and revised approaches to advance carbon capture and storage technologies.

Witnesses

• Samuel Bodman, Secretary, Department of Energy

• Paul W. Thompson, Chairman of the Board, FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc.