GORE PUSHES SOLAR TAX CREDIT; OWNERS INSTALLING ENERGY-SAVING PANELS WOULD GET DEDUCTIONS.

Byline: John Howard Associated Press 

Vice President Al Gore on Friday proposed a $2,000 tax credit for property owners who install energy-saving photovoltaic solar panels on their homes or businesses.

Gore, in the midst of a three-day, campaign-style swing through California, focused on the nation's economy and studiously avoided mention of the scandals swirling about the Clinton administration.

He appeared at opening ceremonies for British Petroleum's solar manufacturing facility, the energy firm's first such plant in the nation, and said solar-powered development offers the nation a chance to ride ``a marketing-driven wave to a less-polluted, more prosperous future.''

Gore made the comments in a speech to about 300 people at ceremonies attended by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and actor Ted Danson, who heads an environmental group called the American Oceans Campaign.

The plant, 50 miles east of San Francisco, employs 100 people manufacturing photovoltaic panels, which harness solar energy to produce electricity.

With the plant in operation, California will account for 30 percent of the world's photovoltaic production.

Gore described his proposal as a $2,000 solar tax credit for photovoltaic panels. It would apply to systems put in service starting in 1999, and would extend through 2003 for water heating systems and 2005 for photovoltaics, or solar-powered electricity panels.

Property owners installing a $3,000 rooftop solar energy system, for example, would be able to write off $2,000 of the cost on their income tax returns.

As on other stops on Gore's California visit, he took every opportunity to laud the nation's positive economic outlook.

``At the precise moment we created almost 15 million new jobs, we eliminated a budget deficit, while raising income and productivity,'' he said. He also boasted of ``inflation going down, the highest level of private homeownership in the U.S., the lowest level of African-American poverty, unemployment going down, wages going up.''

On Thursday, Gore spoke to several hundred employees of Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, where he said the high-technology industry ``is already today the biggest employer in the United States . . . and it is growing rapidly.''

The vice president announced the Clinton administration's plan to extend a $2.2 billion corporate research tax credit for another year. The credit stimulates private investment, furthers technological progress and helps the economy, he said.

Gore, the administration's most visible proponent of high-tech development, is promoting its plans to boost science, technology and education, including initiatives that President Clinton outlined in his State of the Union speech.

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PHOTO Vice President Al Gore

In midst of California visit