By Paul Baker, CEN Staff

Late Wednesday evening in our nation’s Capitol the Senate modified a Wall Street bailout plan by adding tax breaks for solar, wind and other renewable energy to appease representatives in the House who had defeated the original plan Monday.

The added incentives are similar to those in the Tax Extenders Act passed by the U.S. Senate last month.

As most everyone knows, the original bailout plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson and the Bush Administration had the federal government pouring $700 billion of taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street firms battered by the meltdown of the home mortgage industry.

After some tweaking by Congress over last weekend, the plan was still defeated in the House of Representatives on Monday, with many in Congress denouncing it for having no benefits for ordinary taxpayers. This pushed lawmakers to modify it in the hope of shoring up support.

Democratic Senator Ken Salazar said he has been receiving 500 to 1,000 calls each day from angry Coloradans who don’t want taxpayer money bailing out Wall Street firms, but said the addition of tax breaks for renewable energy would benefit our state’s and create jobs.

“More than 1,000 renewable energy companies in Colorado are creating jobs, and we are seeing many parts of the state beginning to flower because of renewable energy,” Salazar said during a teleconference. “The tax credits in the legislation, especially the eight-year credit for solar energy will have huge potential for Colorado.”

The modified plan passed last night extends the renewable energy production tax credit and the solar energy and fuel cell investment tax credit for eight years.

It also expands the residential energy-efficient property credit to include small wind equipment and geothermal heat pumps. The bill provides tax incentives for carbon capture, energy-efficient buildings and the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Colorado is in a leadership position among states for growing its renewable energy industry, and the proposed tax breaks would help maintain the momentum. Even House Republican leaders said the new elements in the plan would appeal to their rank-and-file.

With major players such as Vestas Wind Turbines establishing manufacturing sites all along the Front Range, the renewable energy sector’s impact on employment is becoming significant. Direct employment in the Denver metro area more than doubled to 13,940 in 2007 from 5,760 in 2004, according to metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

The number of renewable energy companies has grown from roughly 104 in the seven-county metro area in 2004 has jumped to 1,010, although that includes Weld and Larimer counties.

Colorado ranked 10th among the 50 states in renewable-energy employment with 15,400 workers in 2007 - up 2.6 percent from the previous year, surpassing the nationwide growth of 2.1 percent.

Here are the details on the plan:

- Extends renewable energy production tax credit.
- Expands for eight years solar energy and fuel cell investment tax credit.
- Modifies residential energy-efficient property credit, to include small wind equipment and geothermal pumps.
- Offers incentives for carbon capture and sequestration projects.
- Gives tax credits for energy- efficient buildings.
- Offers tax incentives for the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles.