Financing Our Energy Future Act

This bill allows a publicly traded partnership to derive income from certain clean energy-related activities and still be treated as a partnership for federal income tax purposes.

As background, a publicly traded partnership is a partnership whose interests are traded on an established securities market (or readily tradable on a secondary market). A publicly traded partnership generally is treated as a corporation for federal income tax purposes unless 90% or more of such partnership’s gross income is qualifying income.

Under current law, qualifying income includes

• interest and dividends;

• real property rents;

• gain from the sale (or disposition) of real property;

• income from certain activities related to minerals and natural resources, source carbon dioxide, and the transportation or storage of certain fuels; and

• gain from the sale (or disposition) of a capital asset or commodities.

Under the bill, the qualifying income is expanded to include income derived from

• electric power (or thermal energy) generated from renewable energy sources (e.g., wind and solar energy), qualified gasification projects, or advanced nuclear facilities;

• accepting or processing open-loop biomass or municipal solid waste (by certain facilities);

• the storage of electric power or thermal energy using certain energy storage technology;

• the generation, storage, or distribution of electric power (or thermal energy) using combined heat and power system property;

• fuels that use certain carbon oxides as primary feedstock;

• certain renewable chemicals;

• transportation or storage of liquefied or compressed hydrogen;

• the conversion of renewable biomass; and

• certain carbon capture and sequestration facilities.