AWEA Blog - The Olympian urges Congress: Extend PTC

In addition to the endorsements listed here yesterday, The Olympian, a newspaper based in Olympia, Wash., editorialized today in favor of extending the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit.

In an editorial titled “Wind energy still worthy of tax credit,” The Olympian said in part, “Wind energy has made tremendous strides in this nation in recent years, including here in the Pacific Northwest … This year alone, the wind industry has added more than 4,700 megawatts of generation, and another 8.430 megawatts of wind turbines [are] under construction across the country … Despite the genuine need to reduce the federal deficit, the tax credit for wind continues to have strong bipartisan support, a telling reminder that the wind blows in red states and blue states alike.”

Washington currently has 2,699 MW of wind generating capacity installed, enough to power the equivalent of 680,000 homes, but less than one-sixth of the state’s full potential. AWEA estimates that the wind industry employs 2,000 to 3,000 Washington workers.

The PTC is an incentive that reduces taxes on the operators of wind farms and leaves more of the money they earn from electricity sales in private hands, helping to attract private investment not only in wind projects, but in component manufacturers, suppliers, trucking companies and more. 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 119 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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