The “Break it Down” Blog

This is an interesting story from Toby Barlow’s blog. Vote Solar describes the issue as:

Thursday morning, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi decided to drop the renewable energy standard out of the energy bill and drop the tax title. No tax title means no extension of the investment tax credit for solar, and no extention of the production tax credit for wind. Let’s see…nothing for solar, plus nothing for wind, hmmm, add no renewable energy standard, carry the zero…yep, that adds up to precisely nothing for renewable energy

Oddly Pelosi’s website is fairly pro-renewable-energy:

We will reinvest here at home in renewable energy and energy efficiency – spending our energy dollars in the Midwest, not the Middle East.

…

Create good jobs by investing in renewable energy and new technologies for an energy independent America.

As well as Reid hosting a Las Vegas conference about renewable energy (as pointed out by Digg user “cl2yp71c“)

This is certainly an interesting development given the history of each of these people, to now kill off funding for renewable energy resources? I know nay-sayers in the past have talked to the points of how expensive renewable energy can be right now, but that certainly won’t change until an industry is built up around the technologies that feed it and drive the prices down.

What’s going on here? Any insights?