I recently attended the West Coast Green conference in San Francisco and came out enthused and confused.

I was enthused about the progress the green building industry is making. That over 14,000 people from all over the country came to learn about the new innovations in green building is huge for an industry, which in many ways, is in its infancy.

I listened to speakers from all sides of the business, real estate experts, government officials, green building consultants, and contractors to list only a few. They all provided interesting insights on where the industry was and should be going and a bit about it how it was going to get there.

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Jennifer Kho this week asks what I can only assume is a rhetorical question on Green Inc. Blog at NYT, “Is Washington the New Wall Street for Cleantech?”

There was almost $30 billion in the stimulus bill that could be described as allocated toward cleantech. Lobbyists are flocking to the Hill on Waxman-Markey, and they don’t work for free.

There is ample evidence that angels and VCs are now second fiddle to the American taxpayer when it comes to cleantech capital for the next generation of innovation and investment.

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There are all kinds of tax credits and other green incentives in the new economic stimulus bill.

But nonprofits are being left out of the mix. Such organizations are usually ineligible for federal tax incentives for renewable energy projects, according to folks from the National Development Council.

The council, one of the oldest national nonprofit community and economic development organizations in the U.S., aims to change that. The group has secured $1.5 million for a solar installation project at the Gasser Foundation’s base in Napa Valley, Calif.

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