(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Federal energy policy was the subject of an Illinois Senate Energy Committee hearing. Incentives to go solar were one specific.

“The loss of the tax credit for residential customers and the extremely accelerated deterioration of the commercial federal three percent tax credit caused immediate fear and worry throughout all of our potential and prospective customers,” Teague Dickey of Iconic Solar Energy in Rockford told senators.

“It’s an incredibly difficult market to work in right now,” added Lisa Albrecht of All Bright Solar in Chicago. “The angle I like to add is just what a difficult year this has been, and we as an industry have joked about the ‘solar coaster.’ I mean, starting a new industry in 2007 – my career doesn’t even show up on the graphs anymore, because the industry has grown so much.”

The chairman of the Illinois Freedom Caucus, State Rep. Chris Miller (R-Hindsboro), couldn’t be less supportive. “We have a core problem, and that is just being stupid,” Miller said in an online news conference following the hearing. “The only thing green about the climate scam is the money they are stealing from the taxpayers here in the state of Illinois, causing their energy bills to be the equivalent of another mortgage payment.”