Montana’s Max Baucus thinks there’s a better idea to fund energy development

The big Max Baucus http://www.baucus.senate.gov/ news this week is that the Montana senator will — for whatever reason — get tapped to be the next U.S. ambassador to China.

The more intriguing Max Baucus news, though, might have been the energy tax reforms he unveiled on Wednesday. (You read that sentence correctly.) Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, put out a plan http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/12/Baucus.energy.bill_.draft_.DEc_.2013.pdf to dump all 42 existing tax incentives for specific energy sources. Instead, he would create two broad tax credits that would boost clean energy without picking specific technologies or explicitly taking sides between, say, nuclear energy and wind power.

Posted by Brad Plumer

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/19/the-way-congress-funds-clean-energy-is-a-mess-max-baucus-has-a-better-idea/