Earlier today, President Obama signed legislation (H.R. 4583) to extend for two years the Bush-era individual income tax rate reductions. H.R. 4583 also contains items of interest to the renewable energy sector, the most significant of which is a one-year extension of the deadline to begin construction of “specified energy property” for purposes of the cash-grant provisions enacted by Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In addition, H.R. 4583 (i) extends 50 percent bonus depreciation for two years (generally, for property placed in service before January 1, 2013) and (ii) enacts a provision allowing 100 percent expensing of certain types of depreciable property placed in service after September 8, 2010, and before January 1, 2012.