Boozhy: a blog

Boozhy Debates: Tonight the Presidential Campaigns Debate Energy Policy

Tonight at 6:30 PM P.S.T., senior policy advisors from the McCain and Obama campaigns will be coming together at Stanford University to discuss energy and innovation policy in their respective administrations.  You can watch it streamed live. While you're there, you should check out the video of last month's forum on health policy at George Washington University.

Boozhy Headlines: RICH! Rich, I Tell You!

Scheduled to become law in January is a $20 a month Federal tax credit for bike commuters. 

Come January, bike commuters will receive a monthly credit of up to $20 that can be spent on maintaining, repairing or buying bicycles. Employers, many of whom have long provided tax-free parking and transit benefits, will establish how they administer the cycling tax credit.  Employers will be able to deduct the credit from their corporate taxes...  The idea was to level the playing field for cyclists.

Boozhy Headlines: Golden Eggs for Green Pork

It seems the Wall Street rescue package does a whole lot more than rescue Wall Street.  It is also chock full of golden eggs for tasty green pork.  According to Josh Green, partner of a VC firm specializing in green technologies:

"It's a pretty comprehensive bill, much more so than extending the [tax credit] for solar. While that's probably the premiere provision, there's a whole lot more in there... I'm not a huge fan of all the pork that was put into the bill, but if it's going to be in there, I'm glad there's all this energy stuff."

With both Obama and McCain using "green jobs" as a cornerstone to their economic development platforms, the $700 Billion economic recovery bill allows for a variety of tax breaks for technologies like geothermal, solar thermal, plug in hybrids and tidal and wave power research.  Hooray for the government.  It seems we are actually seeing outlined goals that match legislation.  Ching Ching to energy independence!