On July 10, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its Fiscal Year 2009 (FY 09) Energy and Water Development spending bill and provided $5 million for the Renewable Energy Production Incentive (REPI) program. The House Appropriations Committee earlier also appropriated $5 million in its FY 09 bill.
However, because of presidential election year politics and a looming veto fight with President Bush over FY 09 spending bills, most appropriations bills are not expected to go to the floor this year. Instead, Congress is expected to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government at FY 08 levels well into FY 09. REPI was funded at about $5 million in FY 08.
REPI provides qualifying public power and electric cooperative facilities annual incentive payments of 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (indexed for inflation) for the first 10-year period of their operation, subject to the availability of annual appropriations in each Federal fiscal year of operation.