From wind turbines proposed in Aroostook County to wood-burning power plants peppered across the state, Maine energy interests hitched a ride on corporate tax legislation that Congress approved Monday.

Energy provisions form a sliver of the $137 billion bill that mushroomed from the need to change a $5 billion tax break that the World Trade Organization found illegal for exporters. But more than a dozen energy provisions worth more than $3 billion found their way into the bill.

House leaders repeatedly refused to separate popular pieces of the long-stalled energy legislation, which was one of President Bush's top domestic priorities and could have become the first national energy policy in a decade.

What's provocative is how - and how quietly - the energy provisions won approval.

"I think it's unfortunate that we're dealing with it in a piecemeal fashion rather than with a comprehensive approach," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Finance Committee that reviews tax legislation. "I'm just sort of mystified about how it could end up being so polarized a situation on an issue that is vital to our national interest."

Each chamber approved rival energy measures last year. But compromise negotiations collapsed because House leaders insisted on a provision to protect the manufacturers of the gas additive MTBE from lawsuits, which provoked a filibuster in the Senate. Northeast Republicans including Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, helped Democrats sustain the filibuster that killed the bill.

After that, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, vowed that he wouldn't carve away the popular tax provisions from the more controversial aspects of the legislation that would spur oil production, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and protect MTBE manufacturers.

On Oct. 5, two days before the big tax vote, DeLay praised Energy Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, for trying to attach the energy bill to the tax legislation. Negotiators refused to link the two.

LOADING UP ON PORK

Quietly, however, a number of energy provisions slipped into the tax bill. Some appeared counterintuitive for the Republican-led Congress.

For example, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, who is in a tough re-election battle, won approval of three incentives for ethanol and biodiesel fuel that are vital to his home state of South Dakota. His advantage was that his interests aligned with Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose state grows corn for ethanol.

In comparing a congressional report about the tax bill against a Congressional Research Service report about the energy bill, I counted five successful incentives for fossil fuels that lawmakers haggled over in the energy bill, three for making electricity more reliable and another five incentives for renewable fuels.

The total value of the provisions over the next decade is more than $3.3 billion, with renewable energy such as wind and biomass accounting for nearly $2.3 billion, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The five fossil breaks were for marginal oil and gas wells, better oil recovery, Alaskan pipelines, low-sulfur diesel fuel, and train and barge diesel fuel.

Three for electricity were for sale of transmission facilities, electric cooperatives and so-called "Green Bonds" to encourage energy efficient buildings.

The last five were for renewable fuels generally, small producers of ethanol, blending ethanol with other fuel, biodiesel and the minimum tax that generators must pay.

"These changes taken together will help make the electricity sector stronger and more competitive, while also give a jump to the increasingly important renewable fuels portion of our generation portfolio," said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group representing 70 percent of the electricity generators in the country.

The latest tax bill wasn't the first to rescue energy provisions. A bill that Congress approved recently to extend tax breaks for married couples and parents revived a tax credit for wind-generated power through the end of 2005.

The credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour expired at the end of 2003. But it is considered necessary to encourage Maine projects on Redington Mountain and on Mars Hill Mountain.

RELIEF FOR ENERGY PRODUCERS

When Bush signed that bill Oct. 4, he mentioned the need for alternative sources of energy such as ethanol and biodiesel.

The so-called middle-class tax cuts also included a provision to keep a $2,000 income tax deduction for buyers of hybrid cars that run on gas and electricity, such as the Toyota Prius.

Now the corporate tax bill, which Bush is expected to sign, created a renewable tax credit for biomass power plants at 0.9 cents per kilowatt hour. The credit is only half what the wind folks enjoy, but it's the first time the wood burners get a federal credit.

Biomass is important in Maine because nine power plants across the state - including three reopening after long closures - are eligible for the credit. The facilities provide 200 jobs and pay more than $2.6 million in local taxes.

"The future for many Maine jobs - biomass plant operators, timber harvesters and haulers, sawmill workers, wind farm construction - is better as a result of this action by Congress," said Dave Wilby, executive director of the industry group Independent Energy Producers of Maine.

Special-interest provisions soured many on the bill. Despite supporting Maine power producers, Collins and Democratic Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud each voted against the tax bill, leaving Snowe the bill's only supporter in the delegation.

Allen, a member of the Energy Committee, said approval of tax provisions suggested it will be more difficult to revive legislation for a broader national policy.

"Wind power projects like Mars Hill can't keep waiting and waiting and waiting for a tax credit to be put in place," Allen said.

Staff Writer Bart Jansen can be

contacted at 202-488-1119 or at:

bjansen@pressherald.com