Reuters reported on Wednesday that China’s environmental ministry has okayed the construction of a new hydroelectric dam on the Dadu River in the Sichuan province, which when completed will be the country’s largest.

China’s energy mix was 9.4 percent renewable as of 2011, and the Sichuan project is part of the country’s effort to boost itself to 15 percent by 2020. Hydroelectric power is anticipated to make up most of that increase.

The environmental ministry acknowledged that the project is massive enough to damage the local ecology, negatively effecting certain rare fish species and plant life. The dam’s developers have promised to try and offset those effects with “counter-measures,” and the project still requires the approval of China’s ruling cabinet.

To be built over 10 years by a subsidiary of state power firm Guodian Group, it is expected to cost 24.68 billion yuan ($4.02 billion) in investment.

The ministry, in a statement issued late on Tuesday, said an environmental impact assessment had acknowledged that the project would have a negative impact on rare fish and flora and affect protected local nature reserves.

Developers, it said, had pledged to take “counter-measures” to mitigate the effects.

Right now the title for China’s tallest dam goes to the Xiaowan project, at 292 meters, while the tallest dam in the world is currently Tajikistan’s Nurek dam, at 300 meters. The Sichuan dam will top 314 meters when all is said and done.

China has been at the forefront of hydroelectric development for a while now, with an enormous number of dams either constructed, in the works, or in the planning stages. Even individual projects can be of tremendous scale, providing in at least one instance an electrical capacity equal to nearly half of Britain’s entire national grid, and preventing 200 metric tons of carbon emissions each year. As of 2010, worldwide hydroelectric capacity was 850 to 900 gigawatts, meaning about one-fifth of the world’s electricity — and half the electricity for almost two thirds of the world’s countries — comes courtesy of hydropower. Though that use varies widely: the United States and Europe have developed 70 and 75 percent of their hydroelectric potential, while Africa has only taken advantage of 7 percent.

At the same time, the large bodies of water and massive landscape alterations that are part and parcel of large dam projects mean hydroelectricity can come with unusually significant downsides. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China’s Hubei province, for example, caused significant ecological damage, increased the risk of landslides, flooded a number of archeological and cultural sites, and displaced 1.3 million people. And the constricted water flow can hurt downstream populations that rely on the rivers for their fresh water supplies.

Meanwhile, climate change itself is also making hydropower less reliable, as altering weather patterns dry up some river flows, boost others, and generally make the future availability of water flows more difficult to predict.

One answer to those challenges could be small scale hydropower. Studies suggest there’s as much as 30 gigawatts of unused potential for such projects in the United States. These set-ups generally provide 10 kilowatts to 30 megawatts a piece, and don’t require damming rivers. (Or they can be built into already existing dams, the vast majority of which are not hydroelectric.) Unfortunately, regulatory red tape is in many ways the major hurdle to taking advantage of small scale hydro.

Since last November’s Presidential election, immigration reform with a road map to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country has been gaining momentum. On April 16 the bipartisan Senate “Gang of 8″ introduced their immigration bill, and diverse groups such as organized labor, evangelical Christians, and business leaders have lent their support for reform.

Just last month, the board of the Sierra Club, the oldest environmental organization in the United States voted to add their voice to the movement, officially supporting immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship. In doing so they joined other well-known environmental leaders like Bill McKibben and Van Jones.

Immigration reform and environmental protection are progressive issues that are in alignment, as the Sierra Club’s support illustrates: immigrants are affected by climate change and care about the environment, and the environmental movement is in turn strengthened by the inclusion of immigrant voices.

Here are the top five things you need to know about immigrants and the environment:

1. Immigrants are already a part of the environmental movement. Immigrants and people of color have long been key players in the environmental justice movement, which has been fighting back against environmental injustice that has disproportionately affected communities of color and low-income communities. Environmental justice organizations, for example, often speak out against polluting and toxic businesses, like power plants and fuel tank facilities that are sited in or near communities of color. But while immigrants have been active in the more localized environmental justice movement, they need to have a larger role in the overall environmental movement which has all too often been criticized for a lack of diversity. In a recent Grist post, One America board member Sudha Nandagopal wrote, “… we don’t just need to add diverse faces to the crowds at environmental protests. We need inclusive strategies and a diversity of ideas. Communities of color must be equitable partners in identifying problems, crafting solutions, and pushing for change.”
2. Immigrants have a big stake in the health of the planet. Historically, immigrants and people of color have borne a greater share of environmental burdens in their communities and at their jobs. According to the Sierra Club, 43 percent of Latino voters either live or work near a toxic site (such as a power plant, refinery, highway or factory.) This figure has increased by close to 10 percent since 2008, showing a dangerous uptick in the number of Latinos potentially exposed to dangerous environmental conditions, and the need among this community for a cleaner, healthier planet.
3. Immigrants tend to lead low-carbon lifestyles. More than half of all immigrants live in large metropolitan areas, which have some of the lowest per capita emissions in the U.S. In fact, CAP analysis has found that cities with the lowest carbon footprint had an average immigrant population of 26 percent, while the 10 highest per-capita carbon emitting cities have an average immigrant population below 5 percent. In addition to living in big cities, immigrants are almost three times more likely to take public transportation and nearly two times more likely to carpool than native-born residents.
4. Immigrants are helping to drive the green economy. Immigrants are leading new businesses in the green and high-tech industries, having launched 40 percent of publicly traded, venture-backed companies and nearly half of private, venture-backed startups. Additionally, immigrants occupy many “green-collar” jobs (blue-collar jobs in the green goods and services industry) and use their skills to advance energy efficiency, clean energy and sustainability. Green-collar employment includes jobs in wind turbine manufacturing, solar power project construction, home weatherization, solar panel installation, etc.
5. Immigrants support environmental policies. A recent poll found that 7 out of 10 Latino voters support environmental protections while 9 out of 10 feel a sense of “moral responsibility” when it comes to protecting the environment. A similar study of Asian American voters in California found that 3 out of 4 are extremely or very concerned about environmental issues, and 7 out of 10 believe that environmental regulations “provide an important benefit to society and protect health, air and water.” Immigrants from Latin American and Asian countries represent more than 60 percent (over 24 million residents) of the U.S. foreign-born population and these polls indicate that they can be strong advocates for environmental protections.

In coming out in support of immigration reform, Sierra Club President Allison Chin stated, “By establishing an equitable path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America today, we can empower those in our society who are most vulnerable to toxic pollution to fully participate in our democracy, fight back against polluters and demand public health protections and clean energy solutions.” The intersection of environmentalism and immigration reform will continue to benefit and strengthen both movements.

Anh Phan is Manager of the Anti-Hate Table in Immigration Policy and Mari Hernandez is a Research Associate in Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress. Special thanks to former American Progress staffer Jorge Madrid for his help.

Credit: AutomobileMag.com

Tesla Motors Company is coming off a very good week. On Wednesday, the company reported that it had sold more electric vehicles than any other automaker during the first quarter of the year, and turned a profit for the first time in its 10 year history.

On Thursday, Consumer Reports — the famously austere purveyors of customer satisfaction surveys and product testing for all manner of consumer goods — announced that Tesla’s Model S roadster outperformed every other commercially-available vehicle in their annual battery of stress tests, scoring a 99 out of a possible 100:

The Tesla Model S outscores every other car in our test Ratings. It does so even though it’s an electric car. In fact, it does so because it is electric.

Built from the ground up as an EV, this car’s overall balance benefits from mounting the battery under the floor and in the lowest part of the body. That gives the car a rock-bottom center of gravity that enables excellent handling, a comfortable ride, and lots of room inside.

The reviewers didn’t stop there. So thorough was the performance of Tesla’s flagship car, the magazine went on to describe the Model S as one of the best cars they’ve ever tested in its nearly 80 year history: “So is the Tesla Model S the best car ever? We wrestled with that question long and hard. It comes close.”

Tesla’s score of 99 is the highest for any hybrid or electric vehicle, and tied for the highest rating awarded to any car in the history of the magazine. The market for 100 percent electric cars has lagged behind the rest of the industry, hindered in part from the perception that the cars weren’t reliable or practical for everyday use. But coupled with the quickening expansion of high-speed charging stations in the most highly trafficked parts of the country, the endorsement from Consumer Reports could further expedite Tesla’s growth.

Lest critics think that fancy sports cars always sell well, it turns out that Tesla outsold the similarly-priced cars that drink gasoline created by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.

Sales of the company’s luxury sedans have steadily grown in recent months and the company is now on track to sell an estimated 21,000 cars by year’s end. Tesla believes that one way the company will sell more cars is to be able to sell them directly — not through a dealership. It is asking states that currently bar manufacturers from doing this to change their laws so that Tesla could sell cars to, say, Texans in Texas. A recent bill passed by a North Carolina Senate committee would ban the direct sale of automobiles, which would be a huge step backward for the company, which has sold 80 cars in the state.

Tesla’s recent growth and profit are nice, but the company needs to grow a lot more if it plans to displace more of the gas-guzzling vehicles currently on the road. Two things will help:

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Wind power had a banner year in 2012, accounting for more new generating capacity than any other resource. Despite the boom in cheap natural gas, 42 percent of all new capacity last year was actually from wind, which clocked in at 13,131 MW in new installations for the year.

The economics for wind power have only gotten more compelling, helped in no small part by the Production Tax Credit and the Investment Tax Credit creating strong investment incentives. This boom in wind power has begun to transform electricity markets across the country, creating significant net benefits for consumers and providing low carbon power to homes nationwide.

A new report from the consulting firm Synapse and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid found that increases in wind power in the PJM Interconnection could save consumers $6.9 billion per year out to 2026, along with 14 percent reductions in CO2.

The PJM Interconnection is the world’s largest competitive wholesale electricity market, serving 60 million customers across 13 states and the District of Columbia. Currently, wind provides about 1.5 percent of the electricity to PJM’s customers, and accounts for 3.4 percent of installed capacity. Based just on the Renewable Portfolio Standards in states within the PJM region, renewables must provide 14 percent of all electricity by 2026. It is likely that about 11 percent of this will come from new wind generation.

The report from Synapse uses the projections from meeting Renewable Portfolio Standards as a reference case, and then takes a look at the effects of doubling the amount of wind power required by statute in the PJM region out to 2026. By modeling the production costs and capital investments, the authors can ascertain what the difference is between these two cases for revenue requirements (and therefore, the impact on ratepayers). The big difference between these two cases is that in the reference scenario, natural gas composes the majority of new generation beyond what the state Renewable Portfolio Standard requires—and wind takes that market share in the other. This illustrates the shortsightedness of the “cheap natural gas” narrative that has become conventional wisdom in mainstream reporting. The cheaper bet, actually, is increasing deployment of wind.

The report finds that doubling capacity of installed wind, from 32.1 GW in the base case to 65.4 GW in the wind case, would create net savings of $6.9 billion per year. This is the result of savings from production costs amounting to $14.5 billion, and capital investment requirements of $7.6 billion. Remember that the capital investment numbers here represent the difference between what would be spent in the reference case ($17.4 billion) and what would be spent in the wind case ($25 billion).

The other benefit of more wind in PJM is lower wholesale prices. The report finds that the load-weighted average annual price for power drops from $80.27 per megawatt hour to $78.53 per megawatt hour.

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Credit: John Moore / Getty Images

The Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program was started in 2005 under the Bush Administration, but ramped up thanks to the 2009 stimulus passed by President Obama and the Democrats. It has gotten a bad rap ever since the high-profile failure of Solyndra, one of the solar tech companies the program invested in.

But, of course, a certain amount of failures and losses just come with the territory of investments in new technology. And The Atlantic Wire reports that the latest numbers reveal the program’s successfully shepherded 28 companies with various renewable energy projects, while creating over 20,000 jobs. Throw in the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, and the total created jobs come to around 60,000.

The purpose of the program, which is no longer handing out new loans, was to help companies cross the “valley of death” — the point when a company’s debt is at a maximum, because it’s already spent money investing in capacity and research and development, but hasn’t yet seen enough success in the market to have the revenue to begin paying those loans back. The government guarantee then encourages private investors, who must ultimately make up at least 20 percent of the investment pool under the programs rules, to take the risk of backing the company. The government’s own contributions are also structured as a loan, meant to be paid back over time.

As The Atlantic Wire notes, that last point is especially important to remember. The loan program has paid out $26 billion in total, resulting in a less-than-impressive ratio of $1.2 million per job created. But that’s with the government’s expenditures all out the door, and the returns from the companies yet to come in:

The loan guarantee is often considered a cost, which it isn’t. Some programs — like that wind farm out in Hawaii, are already repaying the loan, though it’s not clear how much. Others, like NextEra Energy, never received the full loan amount. We are currently at the high point of the dollars-for-jobs-created ratio. Given the nature of the program, the amount the government is out is reduced gradually over time.

The calculation is only temporarily that 0.8 jobs were created for every $1 million spent. It is nearly as fair to say that the ratio is 20,000-to-zero.

Obviously, the 20,000 jobs for $0 is an almost-certainly unattainable ideal, but that’s the direction in which the ratio is headed. And for the curious, here’s a map The Atlantic Wire compiled of the various projects and their numbers:

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the loan program has already brought one utility-scale solar project to operation, with ten more in the process of construction, in states such as Michigan, Kentucky, and Alabama. When they’re all completed, the eleven projects will supply over 2,700 megawatts — enough power to run roughly half a million homes. Another one of the loan program’s projects is expected to install 750 megawatts of solar arrays on commercial rooftops, across 28 different states.

North Carolina State Sen. Bill Rabon (R)

The ALEC-sponsored bill to gut North Carolina’s clean energy standard failed last week in one House committee. But as the Charlotte Observer reports, last night it passed a Senate committee over shouted objections to do something most people take for granted in a democracy — counting votes to see which side has more.

Over the objections of Democratic lawmakers, a Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday to end the state’s 6-year-old renewable energy program.

Opponents of the bill shouted “No!” when voting to show their frustration at Republican Chairman Bill Rabon’s refusal to count votes with a show of hands. In what was clearly a razor-thin margin, both sides said they would have won if the votes had been counted.

“North Carolina is not a banana republic,” Democratic Sen. Josh Stein of Raleigh, one of the no votes, said after the meeting. “That was no way to run a proceeding.”

It was also evident that the Republicans are split on the legislation that would end a state policy of requiring electric utilities to buy green electricity from solar farms and other renewable generators.

At least a half-dozen Republicans voted with Democrats against the controversial bill Wednesday.

The Senate bill would keep the utilities’ clean energy requirement at a laughable 3 percent and get rid of the mandate entirely by 2023. Utilities support the standard: Duke Energy has found that the clean energy promoted by the standard helps with peak load, is reliable, and makes a profit. North Carolina agriculture showed up to testify in favor of the standard, from farmers to the Pork Council. (Pork farmers would rather use the methane from swine waste lagoons to make energy instead of letting it waft into the atmosphere.)

Who opposed it? Mostly radical conservative groups like the Heartland Institute, the Koch Brothers, ALEC, Art Pope, the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and their friends in the North Carolina State Legislature.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Bill Rabon heard the loud nays (consisting of at least six Republicans voting with Democrats) and without allowing a show of hands to count, approved the legislation out of committee. This is democracy in action in North Carolina:

(Video: NC Policy Watch)

This Senate bill moves to the Commerce Committee for a vote and would have to pass there as well as before the full Senate by May 16 to get to the House in time to pass this legislative session.

If it gets there the House version’s sponsor, ALEC member Mike Hager, will have to bring his version back before his Public Utilities and Energy Committee for a re-vote after his bill failed there last week. Hager was in the Senate committee room, talking with staff as this “vote” took place.

Gutting laws that have wide support and economically benefit the whole state becomes easier when you can do it just because you say so, and don’t have to worry about counting votes.

(Credit: Michael Felletter)

The latest report from NPD Solarbuzz — a market research firm based out of Santa Clara, California — projects that global revenues for the solar photovoltaic (PV) module industry will drop from $25.5 billion last year to $20.5 billion for this year. That 20 percent plunge, according to Solarbuzz, is a simple matter of overproduction.

The supply of potential solar PV capacity shot all the way up to 45 gigawatts by 2012, while end-market demand only reached 29 gigawatts. The cause was a precipitous drop of 50 percent in the average selling price of the modules, which is great for anyone who wants to buy, install, or use solar energy, but not so great for firms that supply it.

So now there’s an ongoing drop in revenues, and a lot of backtracking amongst firms to bring supply back into line with demand, according to NPD Solarbuzz Senior Analyst Michael Barker:

Share values of several publicly listed PV companies have been falling close to delisting levels, operating losses have been reported in the hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter, and many manufacturers are continuing to file for insolvency.

As CleanTechnica noted, the recent bankruptcy of then Chinese solar manufacturer Suntech Power is only the most high-profile example of the problem. (Though it looks like Suntech’s troubles also had a lot to do with bad financial management outside of any question of market fundamentals.) The good news is that the reckoning should be short. NPD Solarbuzz also projects revenues will start climbing again in 2014, and should clear 2012′s level by 2016.

Solar PV Module Supplier Revenues Forecast To 2017

Source: NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz 2013

There’s an argument to be made that the short-term culprit here is the contest between the United States and China, to see who can subsidize their respective solar industries the most (Hint: China is winning). On the other hand, finding the most economically efficient way to deliver energy — or finding the best “comparative advantage” roles for the U.S. and China in the solar market — is only the second most important goal of promoting renewables.

The most important goal is preventing worldwide ecological and civilizational catastrophe. And the entire way we currently conceptualize and measure economic activity doesn’t grapple with the damage we’re doing on that account.

Admittedly, tax and grant subsidies for renewable energy technology are an imperfect response to that problem. Building prices into the energy we get from fossil fuels that actually account for the ecological and social risks of carbon emissions would be far more elegant — and might help avoid some of these annoying overshoots and busts in the renewable energy market. But getting a price on carbon is proving to be a difficult political lift.

And in the meantime, simply sitting on our hands isn’t an option.

(h/t: CleanTechnica)

How can we design an energy system that improves the quality of life of those who use it? In an event last Thursday entitled Policy Briefing: The Present and Future of Renewables in the United States and Around the World, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) pointed out that this is the type of question that we should be asking.

While the event highlighted the growth of renewable energy and its future prospects all over the world, Rep. Holt emphasized what he sees as the lack of urgency in deploying the amount of renewables and clean energy needed to really address climate change. He added, “We are losing track in this country [and] we have lost track here in Congress that about now we are barreling past 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere … and that is not driving our energy policy and it should.”

During her presentation on the forthcoming Renewables 2013 Global Status Report (GSR 2013), Renewable Energy Policy Network of the 21st Century (REN21) Executive Secretary Christine Lins shared some good news on the current status of energy policy globally: the number of countries that have renewable energy targets has doubled since 2005 and now includes 120 countries – more than half of which are developing countries.

The GSR 2013 will be published in June, and Lins presented some of the main insights from it, including:

• Renewable energy makes up 18% of global final energy consumption
• 25% of global power generation capacity comes from renewable energy
• Cumulative installed capacity of solar photovoltaics (PV) has reached 101 gigawatts (GW), including 30 GW added in 2012
• Solar PV module prices fell 40% in 2011 and another 20% in 2012
• Cumulative installed wind capacity reached 282 GW, including 40 GW added in 2012

The event not only reviewed the current status of renewable energy, but also looked to the future with a presentation by Eric Martinot on the Renewables Global Futures Report (RGFR). Martinot, who authored the report, interviewed 170 leading experts and analyzed current renewable energy projections to provide an outlook on the future of renewable energy.

There were three main takeaways from Martinot’s presentation on the RGFR:

1. Most industry experts (interviewed by Martinot) believe that shares of renewable energy could reach at least 30-50% in the long term – showing that conservative projections that predict renewable energy shares of less than 20% out to 2040, like those from ExxonMobil, are no longer credible
2. Renewable energy investment is expected to nearly double by 2020, though many experts agree that higher levels of investment will require new investors and equity sources, such as oil companies, aggregated securities funds, pension funds, insurance funds, etc.
3. In the transition to greater levels of renewable energy, there will be opportunities for companies other than manufacturers and installers of renewable energy products, including electric power utilities, automakers, oil companies, IT companies and building materials manufacturers

Both the GSR 2013 and the RGFR offered insights into the renewable energy sector, showing positive trends in renewable energy deployment and investment. But, as Rep. Holt said, this growth and the policies that are driving it must be coordinated with our overall climate goals to ensure that it’s enough to drastically reduce our emissions.

If we can do this, we will be able to address climate change in a meaningful way while also improving the quality of life for people around the world.

(Credit: Glenn J. Asakawa)

Colorado residents will now be able to enjoy even more clean energy coming out of their outlets, along with cleaner air and less carbon pollution.

After nearly two days of strenuous debate, Colorado’s House of Representatives voted shortly before midnight Friday night to strengthen the state’s successful renewable energy standard (RES). The bill, which has already passed the Senate and is supported by Governor Hickenlooper, will increase the clean energy standard to 25 percent for rural electric cooperatives by 2020 — a 15 percentage point jump from the current 10 percent. This would mean in seven years, rural areas of Colorado will benefit from one-quarter of their energy portfolio being derived from renewable sources.

These efforts proved successful despite:

• attacks from the conservative American Tradition Institute, including an ongoing lawsuit that argues the RES is unconstitutional
• previous attempts from state representatives to pass American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) “model” bills to fully repeal the standard (documented across the country)
• sudden opposition to expanding the RES from utility interests like the Colorado Rural Electric Association, an organization that had actually supported a broader RES in 2007 as renewable energy prices dropped

Prior to the vote, Democratic State Representatives made strong arguments about diversifying their energy portfolios and how important it is to decrease carbon pollution. Rep. Max Tyler, author of the 2010 law increasing the standard to 30 percent for utilities, explained how his own utility bill was cheaper than those in rural electric cooperatives because renewable energy prices have dropped steadily. Speaker Pro Tempore Claire Levy reported that the utility Xcel found that increasing its share of renewables was good for its bottom line, and because this bill included a 2 percent rate cap, ratepayers would be protected. Responding to arguments that the bill is an “assault” on rural Colorado, Levy said that instead, the bill would allow rural areas to benefits from the economic activity generated by the higher standards in other areas. In the end, the bill passed the House by voice vote.

In 2004, Coloradans were the first to approve a renewable energy standard by ballot initiative. The Centennial State has already seen the benefits of implementing and expanding a robust RES. In fact, from 2005 to 2010, the clean technology sector grew by 32 percent. This growth has led to the creation of 1,600 clean technology companies that employ over 19,000 workers, which ranks Colorado fourth nationally in clean energy jobs. In fact, the clean technology sector was the only sector in the state to show growth in 2010.

Coloradans also overwhelmingly support the policy, with 72 percent of the state agreeing that “rather than using more coal, we should move toward cleaner sources of energy,” a view held across party lines. Prior to the vote, nearly 4,000 Coloradans signed CREDO Action’s petition in support of the bill, which urged the Colorado representatives to “Please vote yes on SB 252 to ensure that Colorado continues its transition to clean sources of energy.”

Expanding Colorado’s renewable energy standard will not only continue to create clean jobs in Colorado, it will also reduce soot, smog, mercury, and carbon pollution from the state’s electricity sector. This legislation would promote investments in small-scale projects that will allow rural landowners to benefit by leasing land for wind farms — creating an additional income stream, as well as allow additional credits for renewable sources.

In fact, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, wind energy provides 10 times more local tax revenue than a coal-fired power plant in Colorado. If enacted, the legislation would clean up the grid for at least 100,000 Coloradans served by rural cooperatives and bring them closer to the 30 percent renewable target that urban customers enjoy.

This week, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and a diverse group of original co-sponsors introduce a bill that would lower the cost of capital for clean energy, a critical piece of deploying clean energy at the scale needed to fight climate change. The bill — the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act — would allow renewable energy and energy efficiency to access the MLP structure.

The MLP Parity Act is a common-sense bill with bipartisan, bicameral support that simply levels the playing field for clean energy. Now, when someone tells you that they have a “common-sense bill with bipartisan, bicameral support that simply levels the playing field for clean energy,” you should be skeptical. Allow me to address that skepticism.

First, a little background. (Take a deep breath, and bear with me for just a second.) When a business starts, it can be organized in any number of corporate structures. S-Corporations, C-Corporations, sole proprietorships, limited liability corporations, and countless other structures all have unique implications for how a company can raise money and how they’re taxed.

A master limited partnership is a type of “publicly traded partnership,” which has two valuable characteristics: it can raise money on public exchanges, is traded just like stocks, and it doesn’t pay corporate income taxes. All of the income flows through to shareholders, who pay a personal income tax, so there’s no “double-taxation” as happens with other corporations. (Okay, exhale.)

The problem is that the law that created MLP’s says that only certain types of companies can use this structure. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are not eligible, so most MLP’s in the energy industry are oil and gas pipeline companies. The MLP Parity Act simply adds renewable energy and energy efficiency to the list of technologies that can be MLP’s. This is leveling the playing field by treating all energy technologies the same.

The bill has bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. Original co-sponsors include Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Representatives Ted Poe (R-TX), Mike Thompson (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Chris Gibson (R-NY).

While each of these legislators has different reasons for supporting the bill, they all understand that MLP’s are a proven tool for building energy assets, and that it doesn’t make any sense to limit the benefits to oil and gas. Today, there are $350 billion invested in MLP’s, none of it clean energy. Giving clean energy access to this pool of capital would be valuable, because equity raised via a publicly-traded tool — like an MLP — is much cheaper than equity raised from private investors (like private equity firms). Since many clean energy projects are essentially all capital investment and very little operating costs, the cost of capital is a huge factor in how much the project costs. Passing the MLP Parity Act would lower the cost of clean energy.

In addition to these eight co-sponsors of the bill, hundreds of organizations have voiced support for MLP parity for clean energy. Two-hundred thirty-six unions, private companies, environmental groups, financiers, and other advocates for clean energy sent a letter to Congress today urging other legislators to support this bill. In the letter, the groups explain why MLP treatment would be valuable:

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