2.0. ERMUSR AGENDA 01-09-2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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provision, and several trade bills. So the challenge was to load up the bill to garner votes, but not too much, or Members could reject it. MMUA, the American Public Power Association, and other public power interests closely followed several key provisions: • Rural bonds: For more than a year we have been keenly interested in rural bonds. The provision, strongly supported by Sen. Coleman and the rural electric coops, would create a new tax credit bond that could be used by small communities in Minnesota and elsewhere, ostensibly for purposes of rural economic development. Unfortunately, those new bonds could only be issued by coop financial entities, and could only be used by coop communities. Further, these bonds could be used to build new electric and water utility infrastructure, a provision that we believe could hamper future service territory agreements and situations. MMUA, APPA, and several members of the municipal community, including the League of Minnesota Cities and others, expressed their concerns with the Coleman legislative proposal. After many meetings and discussions with several Senate offices, House and Senate committee staff, and other interested parties, MMUA took the lead in working with Sen. Coleman's office to fix the legislation by offering suggested changes. Unfortunately, for several reasons, changes to the language never occurred, and MMUA's options were narrowed to opposing the legislation without the requisite changes. In coordination with the Coleman office it was agreed that the current rural bond proposal would be set aside, allowing us to work together in the next Congress. But anything can happen in a lame duck session and another opportunity for Sen. Coleman was born: pass rural bonds as part of the large tax extenders package. MMUA again took the lead in opposing this effort, for several reasons: it was a new program, not an"extender"; it was a rifle-shot, a provision written to help one sector of the electric utility industry; and it was now deemed, through MMUA's efforts, controversial. For these and other reasons the rural bond language was NOT included in the final tax bill. • CREBs: Clean Renewable Energy Bonds were created just over a year ago in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The provision tracked closely with the section 45 tax credits, long enjoyed by the IOUs and private power companies, allowing them the benefit of a tax credit when developing renewable energy resources. The CREB program, administered by the IRS, was "our program," where qualified applicants were considered either"governmental entities" (public power systems) or rural coops. The program was capped at $800 million over two years, and would expire at the end of 2007. The program was a big success: more than 700 entities applied for nearly $2.5 billion, describing various new renewable energy projects around the country. But its brief success also meant its quick demise (no more money and the program would sunset in a year), unless a way could be found to extend the legislation. 2