Lost opportunity

As noted in your front page article Dec. 19, the new federal energy bill failed to include incentives for wind and solar energy. You did not report, however, that our North Carolina senators played a key role in that setback.

Last week, the version of the Senate's energy bill with the renewable incentives failed a 60-vote hurdle by one vote (59-40). That version would have provided strong, long-term tax credits for new wind and solar energy installations at a cost of 1.5 percent of the net profits of oil and gas companies. Sadly, Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr had a chance to vote for a positive future for North Carolina by supporting this state's clean energy companies but instead voted for out-of-state oil and gas interests.

The resulting energy bill was timid given our huge and pressing challenges of global warming, foreign oil dependence, energy trade imbalance and job losses. North Carolina spends more than $12 billion annually on out-of-state energy. Expanded federal incentives could have driven more of those dollars to North Carolina's entrepreneurial energy efficiency, insulation, green building, LED lighting, biodiesel, biomass, solar and wind companies to fight climate change and generate thousands of new jobs for North Carolinians.

David Kirkpatrick

Durham

(The writer is the co-founder of a venture capital firm that invests in cleantech and renewable energy companies.)