GREEN FOCUS: Cool Things That Are Green
Oregon Green News Recap From Last Week 1.2.11 to 1.6.111/10/2011Just 2 news bit from the past week really caught our eye as something of interest.
1/4/11 :: The Residential Energy Tax Credit (RETC), now allows solar systems to get credit for rooftop solar panels for as little as $20/month. Because of this, SolarCity and I'm sure other companies are now doing leasing programs allowing for solar to be more affordably installed upfront.
http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/CONS/RES/RETC.shtml
1/6/11 :: The Oregon Department of Energy is under fire for mishandling Business Energy tax Credit's, which the Oregonian helped to expose, and they are under scrutiny for a lack of coordination around state-level policies. Because of this and the need to make it more a more efficient Department, 2 proposals to revamp or remove the department are being filed as bills on January 10th. One of the proposals, from Rep. Jules Bailey, wants to dissolve it completely and redistribute its work to agencies with more focused expertise like the Public Utility Commission, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and others. The other proposal, from Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, wants to create a 5 member state Energy Commission to overlay the DOE giving a top down process to decision making. Personally, I feel that less is more. I want to know more about dissolving the DOE and centralizing the work load to more focused and specialized organizations...and, I wonder if it will save the state money by doing so?
http://www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2011/01/legislature-may-call-for-an-end-to.html
By: Jonathan Davis, Founder and Editor
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