Ron Wyden

We applaud the Senate Finance Committee's approval last year of bipartisan legislation (S. 913) that clarifies that WHP is a qualifying technology.

Section 179D provides a tax deduction to help offset some of the high costs of energy efficient components and systems for commercial and larger multifamily buildings.

Technology-neutral clean energy tax incentive proposal

The urgent need to extend the clean-energy tax incentives that expire at the end of this year

I appreciate your bringing it up, because getting away from picking winners and losers is the prerequisite to having a technology-neutral policy.

The value of what has been proposed is, Congress finally gets out of picking winners and losers.

What I have proposed--and more than 30 United States Senators are now on board on this--I have said, enough already, let us just throw the tax provisions, the energy tax provisions, in the trash can--there are more than 44 of them--and…

It is time to stop clinging to yesteryear, like the naysayers who saw the first automobiles hit the road a century ago and said, 'Hey, the horse is here to stay.'

The threat posed by climate change grows every day.

I call it 'more green for less green.'

What we ought to be doing is substituting a very different approach, a tech-neutral approach that cuts the costs of these energy subsidies in half.

It is a mishmash, a crazy quilt of distorted incentives.

I think it is time to take the energy provisions in the tax code and throw them in the trash can.

To help restore and protect funding for fire prevention and forest management, Rep. Mike Simpson and Senator Ron Wyden introduced the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act.

When you're confirmed, are you going to have a meeting with the employees and inform them about how they will be protected from retaliation?

I think that any NRO employee who read those press reports might conclude that going to the Inspector General could be hazardous to their career.

It's absolutely essential to have oversight from a strong inspector general.

I share the view of the Chair and the Vice Chair. This is a really important job.

In my view, business decisions should be made for business reasons, not tax reasons.

The policy of encouraging retirement saving through tax-preferred accounts should not require opposition to reducing taxes on other forms of saving.

Mr. Chairman, I again want to commend you for taking on this debt and equity issue. This is extraordinarily important.

I think the kind of concern I would have is, if a company has already eliminated its tax liability, what incentive would it have to hire disadvantaged workers or invest in low-income communities?

Now, the tax code provides a number of important incentives for companies to invest: in research and development for example, infrastructure, hard-to-employ workers, a variety of priorities that, on a bipartisan basis, have been designated…

It seems to me that you and Mr. Buckley are both saying, in some fashion, that for businesses to grow, it is important to retain earnings for long-term planning and investment.

I think this has been an excellent panel.