Solar-energy supporters mourned the demise of legislation that would have offered a 35-percent state tax credit for the installation of solar energy equipment in homes and businesses.
“Unfortunately, sometimes at the Statehouse we lose. It was tough to see two bills that we worked on for two years fail due to the stubborn objections of just a handful of legislators. It was particularly frustrating because both bills had been amended to answer the concerns of opponents,” said the Conservation Voters of S.C. in a post-session legislative update.
Andrew Streit, founder and board member of the S.C. Solar Business Alliance, called the loss “bitterly disappointing” on Tuesday. The second year of the two-year General Assembly ended its normal legislative session in June.
“For three years I’ve been trying to educate people about the benefits of solar and how a small amount of state support to get the industry up and running would have been rock solid economic development,” he said, pointing to added installation and support jobs.
He noted that most states in the region offer better incentives to the solar industry than South Carolina, which he said has a residential credit capped at $3,500.
The Solar Tax Incentive bill targeted state tax credit installations in operation after 2011.
According to the Conservation Voters, the bill, H.3346, was amended to include performance standards for job creation before it lost momentum in April of last year in the Senate Finance Committee.
Last fall the National Solar Jobs Census 2011 identified more than 100,237 solar jobs across the nation, including 1,732 in Georgia. The top 10 states for solar-job counts were Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, Texas, Oregon, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The report said the solar industry grew jobs nearly 10 times faster than employment as a whole. Georgia’s solar-industry jobs ranked 17th, while South Carolina failed to rank within the top 20.
Source: http://savannahnow.com/hardeeville/2012-07-08/sweeter-solar-energy-tax-credit-perishes-sc
“Unfortunately, sometimes at the Statehouse we lose. It was tough to see two bills that we worked on for two years fail due to the stubborn objections of just a handful of legislators. It was particularly frustrating because both bills had been amended to answer the concerns of opponents,” said the Conservation Voters of S.C. in a post-session legislative update.
Andrew Streit, founder and board member of the S.C. Solar Business Alliance, called the loss “bitterly disappointing” on Tuesday. The second year of the two-year General Assembly ended its normal legislative session in June.
“For three years I’ve been trying to educate people about the benefits of solar and how a small amount of state support to get the industry up and running would have been rock solid economic development,” he said, pointing to added installation and support jobs.
He noted that most states in the region offer better incentives to the solar industry than South Carolina, which he said has a residential credit capped at $3,500.
The Solar Tax Incentive bill targeted state tax credit installations in operation after 2011.
According to the Conservation Voters, the bill, H.3346, was amended to include performance standards for job creation before it lost momentum in April of last year in the Senate Finance Committee.
Last fall the National Solar Jobs Census 2011 identified more than 100,237 solar jobs across the nation, including 1,732 in Georgia. The top 10 states for solar-job counts were Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, Texas, Oregon, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The report said the solar industry grew jobs nearly 10 times faster than employment as a whole. Georgia’s solar-industry jobs ranked 17th, while South Carolina failed to rank within the top 20.
Source: http://savannahnow.com/hardeeville/2012-07-08/sweeter-solar-energy-tax-credit-perishes-sc
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