Hard not to be uber-cynical about cutting energy-saving credits for homes.  Christ; the former maximums were low enough!  Why is this President helping us walk backward on so many issues?

This is beyond stupid. Like the article says, it is a move in the wrong direction. Tremendous gains in efficiency is something that can be achieved right now. Imagine if over the last fifteen years that all new houses had been built under regulations requiring a twenty percent improvement in heating and cooling efficiency, a goal that is very easy to reach. The pay-off would continue for as long as the house was occupied. The more expensive the fuel, the greater the pay back and anyone who doesn't expect the relative cost of fuel to rise is just not paying attention.
 This might be the only energy topic where I would be inclined to not put blame on the oil lobby, but I certainly might be wrong. Maybe there is just some sort of inertia that makes them attack everything they have always attacked. I expect them to lobby for tax breaks and cheap mineral leases etc, so as to make every possible penny on every drop of oil they produce, but I also expect that they will, from now on, always have a high demand for every drop produced regardless of whether it is burned efficiently or not. I don't see why they would have spent any "energy" on doing away with efficiency credits.
 Right now, or at least last month, it would cost me twenty-five dollars to take a refrigerator to the landfill. The cost was for them evacuating the freon. Alternately, the electric company will pick up an old refrigerator and pay you forty dollars if you show that you replaced it with a modern, more efficient, one.