Markey blames Senate for "Sophie's choice" slashing renewables aid

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on Tuesday denounced the Senate for forcing the House into making a “Sophie’s choice” in backing emergency state aid partially paid for by stripping away renewable energy incentives.
 
Markey — who has been a leading lieutenant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on energy and environment issues — blamed the Senate for sending the House a $26.1 billion state education and Medicaid funding package that is partially paid for by slashing $1.5 billion in renewable energy loan guarantees approved in last year’s economic stimulus bill.
 
“It’s just something that unfortunately I have to deal with in terms of the way in which the Senate has been forced to operate in 2010,” Markey said, shortly before the House approved the Senate-passed aid package.

“It’s unfortunate that these kinds of Sophie's choices [occur] but it in no way undermines the long-term commitment for renewable energy, which the Speaker and the Democrats have.”

Pelosi made the unusual move of calling House lawmakers back from their summer recess to approve the emergency funding, and held a signing ceremony afterward. She did not take any questions from reporters.
 
Democrats are looking to see whether this $1.5 billion — as well as an earlier $2 billion in renewable energy loan guarantees taken out last August to help fund the “Cash for Clunkers” program — can be replenished.
 
“That would be our goal, yeah,” Markey said. “The Speaker, as you know, is completely committed to the restoration of the "Cash for Clunker" renewable money and I’m sure she will for this as well.”
 
He added, “We’ll have time in September to make sure that there is full funding.”
 
Renewable energy groups certainly hope so.
 
In a letter to President Obama and other administration officials Monday, Solar Energy Industries Association President and CEO Rhone Resch said the removal of the $3.5 billion in loan guarantees could help “send solar development into a tailspin that will be difficult to reverse.”
 
A broader group of renewable energy companies wrote Pelosi Friday saying it would “significantly undermine” the Energy Department renewable energy loan guarantee program.