Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Thursday declined to take a position on President Barack Obama’s push to repeal $36.5 billion over a decade in oil-and-gas industry tax breaks.

“We will take all those proposals very seriously when we have subsequent tax legislation and subsequent energy legislation,” Baucus said in the Capitol when asked about the proposal in the fiscal 2011 White House budget plan.

Obama proposed repealing over $30 billion in industry incentives last year, but Congress did not act on the plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) backs the tax break repeals. But the plan faces heavy resistance from the oil industry, many Republicans and some Democrats from oil- and gas-producing states.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Thursday alleged that federal officials implementing a popular tax credit program to boost manufacture of "clean" energy equipment are failing to consider the potential for serving export markets when awarding the credits.

Wyden urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to "knock heads" to ensure the program addresses the issue -- and threatened to introduce legislation to require export market potential to be factored into credit award decisions.

"I think foreign demand ought to be a big factor in how these tax credits are awarded," Wyden said during a Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DoE's budget plan. He said there are large overseas markets for U.S.-made renewable energy components.

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Regulators in California are issuing what they say is the first federal air pollution permit that limits greenhouse gas emissions.

The permit is being issued to a natural gas fired power plant that Calpine is building in Hayward, Calif. The Russell City Energy Center will have the capacity to produce 600 megawatts of electricity but release 50 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than even the cleanest coal plant, Calpine said in a press release. The company called the permit a “case study” in how the Clean Air Act can be used to regulate carbon and other heat trapping gases.

It’s OK to be confused. A federal greenhouse gas permit? Climate legislation with a cap has sputtered in the Senate. And while EPA is moving forward with its own rule based on the Clean Air Act, the agency still has a long way to go before settling on an emissions limit. Despite the recent activity, no federal limit on heat trapping gases exists.

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Here’s more ammo for Capitol Hill lawmakers with the Tom Friedman view of energy policy, which holds that China will  “clean our clock” in clean energy industries if the U.S. doesn't boost support faster and cap carbon emissions.

The Global Wind Energy Council reported this week that China alone accounted for a third of global wind power capacity additions in 2009. Worldwide capacity grew 31 percent, pushed along by a doubling of wind power in China.

The U.S. also saw a major expansion last year and remains in the world lead for the most wind power capacity. But Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, noted Wednesday that China is “hard on our heels.”

Farmers should send a thank you note to the EPA, according to the Washington Post. The paper’s Steven Mufson considers the agency’s ruling on biofuels announced yesterday (here’s Ben’s story on the decision) to be a “big boost” to corn growers.

Not so much for oil refiners, according to this account in the Dallas Morning News.

Noting that back in May EPA found some types of corn ethanol actually had a higher carbon footprint than gasoline, the paper reports the agency reversal announced Wednesday is “sure to disappoint Texas-based refiners and their allies in Congress, who already complain that Washington has embraced renewable fuels at the expense of the oil industry.”

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Wednesday cheered new EPA ethanol rules and a federal interagency working group’s new strategy to speed up production of next-wave biofuels.

“I am very pleased that at long last the Administration has issued this rule. This keeps the nation on its trajectory of strongly expanding production and use of biofuels, including biodiesel, and gives the biofuel industry the assurance that the nation does support their efforts,” said Harkin, the former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, in a statement.

But he echoed ethanol industry trade groups in attacking EPA for considering “indirect” land use changes when calculating ethanol’s carbon footprint – even though EPA largely found that ethanol meets emissions standards in a 2007 law.

The Environmental Protection Agency handed a victory to ethanol producers Wednesday by issuing final regulations that conclude corn-based fuels will meet greenhouse gas standards imposed under a 2007 energy law. 



The release of the final regulations follow a fierce campaign by ethanol companies who alleged 2009 draft rules unfairly found that large volumes of ethanol production would not meet targets in the statute for reducing greenhouse gasses.



The new rules state that corn-based ethanol will meet a requirement of the 2007 law that they must emit at least 20 percent fewer “lifecycle” greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline.

The White House just announced a new interagency task force to help make “clean coal” a reality.

The task force unveiled Wednesday is charged with speeding up deployment of technologies that trap carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and keep them underground.

Administration officials say carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) are vital to cutting greenhouse gas emissions from abundant but carbon-heavy coal supplies in the U.S. and worldwide. "We believe it is a critical part of our response to climate change," Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters on a conference call.

Growth Energy, the upstart ethanol trade group led by retired Gen. Wesley Clark, is vowing a continued fight against EPA’s authority to weigh certain land use changes when measuring ethanol’s carbon footprint – regardless of how the fuel fares in EPA rules coming out Wednesday.

The final EPA rules will implement a 2007 energy law that requires a huge expansion of biofuels use. Fuels that qualify as renewable under the mandate must emit fewer “lifecycle” greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline by varying degrees.

But Growth Energy and its allies on Capitol Hill believe the science behind one factor EPA is considering – emissions from "international indirect land use changes” – is highly speculative and unfair.