Subject: Implement/tax solar/wind energy Comment: See attachment - why not have a program where the government pays for and gets income from renewable energy installations? To the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform ( http://www.taxreformpanel.gov/contact/index.shtml ) - To get to the point, given the unstable world situation today and the fact that the oil reserves are a non-renewable resource, we need to make our economy as independent of petroleum-based products as possible. Why not have a federal program to make it rather inexpensive to put solar panels and wind vanes on rooftops etc.; and have it pay for itself from the income produced. The last time I checked it cost ~$15K to put solar electricity generating panels on one’s roof. The producers of the panels have well over a 100% markup on the cost to make them. The incentives currently in place will reimburse for ~half of the costs, leaving costs that take 10-20 years to recover. All of the industrial and commercial buildings should have wind vanes and solar panels on their roofs. Why aren’t there programs to provide for these inexpensively? Wind turbines that are currently on many/most roofs to draw heat out of the attic could be hooked up to electricity generating units; who is marketing these now?? The wind vanes I see are large, heavy, and cumbersome. When I was small and we went to amusement parks we could buy plastic pinwheels that would catch the breeze and whirl very fast. It looks like some idiot(s) are dragging their feet to implement the very things we need. Currently there are programs in many states that allow private citizens to sell energy they generate back to the electric companies. This should be allowed/implemented everywhere. I read stories in the paper about ranchers in the Antelope Valley who manage to get systems implemented; why are individuals harassed by the local governments? There need to be legal protection/incentives for private parties; even inexpensive programs… The federal government could have a program to pay for the installation of renewable energy-generating systems and tax their income at a ~1-2% rate. Conceivably over a couple of hundred years the government could bring in enough revenue to support the people in the country, or at least to do away with income taxes, or at least to preclude having these budget deficit problems! Why not forward this email to the Energy Department and appropriate Congressional committees too! Nina Hostetler Taxpayer nmh20012000@yahoo.com |