Jeff Bingaman: “I am glad to come to the Senate floor and join my colleagues in talking about the unfortunate votes that were cast this…”

“I am glad to come to the Senate floor and join my colleagues in talking about the unfortunate votes that were cast this morning--one to go ahead and consider legislation to try to deal with the price of gasoline. That was the first vote where, unfortunately, we rejected the effort to proceed to that bill. The majority of Republican Members chose not to proceed to that bill, which was unfortunate. The second vote was to proceed to a bill that has the effect of extending the provisions that are currently in the Tax Code and particularly to extend tax provisions that are intended to encourage clean energy development. I wish to talk about that second bill in particular because it is one I have been involved in and have followed and supported for some time now. The incentives we have in current law to encourage alternative energy development--wind energy, wind energy farms, wind turbine farms, solar energy developments in this country--most of those incentives were put into place in the current form in 2005 when we passed the Energy bill.”