Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), another senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, just shed some more light on green-energy incentives that could be added to the coming stimulus bill. Stabenow says she's talking with the Obama camp about fully funding the green-collar jobs plan she got (non-bindingly) inserted into last year's budget resolution.

Stabenow already has an impressive 32 fellow Democrats on board with her plan, although the language setting it out the budget resolution is head-scratchingly vague -- a typical feature of the symbolic "reserve funds" that many senators add to budget resolutions with little hope of the provision actually turning into law. Here's the green-collar jobs language, from the final budget:

In the House, the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget may revise the allocations, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for any bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report that provides tax incentives for or otherwise encourages the production of renewable energy or increased energy efficiency; encourages investment in emerging energy or vehicle technologies or carbon capture and sequestration --

Okay, I had to stop it there at the risk of driving people away with Congress-speak. But the gist is promising (despite the uncertain future of carbon capture for coal plants).

I asked Stabenow whether a new agency to provide loans and loan guarantees for energy-efficient projects, as two House members are suggesting, might be feasible. She said the loan guarantees would be building on existing authority in Sections 135 and 136 of the Democrats' 2007 energy bill. The total estimate of projects that could be funded with such loans, per Stabenow, is about $100 billion.

The only trouble is that Sections 135 and 136 of the energy bill deal exclusively with advanced battery technology and fuel-efficient vehicles; a high priority for most, but especially for Michigan as it reels from the auto industry's slow collapse. Where's the money for wind, solar, high-speed transit, and expanding the electricity grid?