Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today said 159,000 private sector jobs were created in October, which gives the country 10 consecutive months of private sector job creation.  More than 1 million jobs were created in the private sector this year.

"Americans are right to be concerned about our economy.  But it's important to note that businesses have created more than 1 million jobs this year.  There is no question that we need to continue creating opportunities for further economic growth.  But there's also no question that the policies Congress put into place not only stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs, but have also helped businesses begin to recover and replace the jobs that were lost ," Bingaman said.

Bingaman called for the passage of a bipartisan tax incentives bill he introduced in September aimed at creating thousands of clean-energy and manufacturing jobs.  The Advanced Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2010 (S. 3935) would do the following:

• Enable home and business owners to defray upfront costs of investing in energy-saving technologies, including the introduction of performance-based tax credits for whole home retrofits;
• Make $2.5 billion in tax credits available to attract manufacturers of technologies that harness clean renewable energy or enhance energy efficiency, and establish a $1 billion tax credit program to enable American manufacturers to undertake energy-saving measures that advance their competitiveness;
• Facilitate the growth of renewable electricity by creating a tax incentive for energy storage systems, which will enable utilities to deploy intermittent energy sources like wind and solar power while reducing energy demands during peak hours and contributing to an overall more reliable smart grid; and
• Retool the tax credit for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to give CCS projects greater certainty.

"We must strive to be the manufacturers of tomorrow's clean energy technologies, so that we can be the supplier to the world.  To do that, we need to have in place key tax incentives that will encourage the private sector to invest right here at home," Bingaman said.  "Enacting my bill is an important step in that direction."