USA PTC Latest News - Mass. Republican, Democrat see wind jobs energy at risk due to PTC delay

The bipartisan support for the PTC reflects warnings from wind industry advocates that roughly half of the 75,000 jobs in the industry nationwide will be lost by the end of the first quarter of 2013 if the credit, scheduled to expire Dec. 31, is not extended by Congress.

The Patriot Ledger article quotes Sen. Brown’s press secretary, John Donnelly, as saying “Sen. Brown believes the wind PTC plays an important role in further developing wind energy resources, which are part of the all-of-the-above approach to energy production.” Rep. Tsongas commented, “Now, 60 percent [editor's note: actually, nearly 70 percent] of the average turbine is manufactured here in the U.S. … “These companies hire skilled and unskilled workers, and provide good paying jobs in a rapidly growing sector of our economy.”

The PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of electricity production from utility-scale wind turbines. It is set to expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress extends it first. A recent study by Navigant Consulting found that extending the Production Tax Credit will allow the industry to grow to 100,000 jobs in just four years, while an expiration would kill 37,000 jobs within a year.

A House bill seeking to extend the PTC has 110 cosponsors, including 25 Republicans, while a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by seven Senators, including three Republicans. PTC extension efforts have received the endorsement of a broad coalition of more than 370 members, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Western Governors’ Association. A PTC extension also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Governors Association, and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes 23 Republican and Democratic Governors from across the U.S. A PTC extension has been endorsed by a number of newspapers across the country, including the Des Moines Register, the Denver Post, the Daily Oklahoman, the Toledo Blade, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Sun-Times, and The New York Times.

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