Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

A recent anti-wind Wall Street Journal editorial ("Windy Republicans," May 5) overlooked a number of facts about the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the accomplishments of the U.S. wind industry. In response, we provide this point-by-point rebuttal.

WSJ: The GOP swept Congressional elections in 2010 promising to end President Obama's $800 billion stimulus and stop industry bailouts. Too bad nobody told that to Iowa Republican Steve King and his colleague Dave Reichert of Washington.

Response: The federal PTC is an effective tool to allow developers to raise private capital in the marketplace and bring renewable energy projects to completion.The PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour ...

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The West Branch (Iowa) Times Friday joined a steadily growing number of newspapers across the country in endorsing an extension of the federal wind energy production tax credit (PTC), commenting that "... [Wind] companies need to build more turbines and create more profit to be able to afford to expand at a significant rate."

Added the Times, "The House Ways and Means Committee needs to move on HR 3307 [a bill to extend the PTC], get it to the House floor and onward to the Senate and White House, giving alternative energy companies the stability and certainty investors greatly desire ... [T]he PTC, in place since 1992, has been working. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in 1999, ...

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A recent poll on public attitudes toward climate change by researchers at Stanford (Calif.) University has found a very strong majority of Americans (73 percent) favoring "the federal government giving companies tax breaks to produce more electricity from water, wind, and solar power."

The idea of tax breaks for renewable energy companies also was the most popular among a list of 12 policy options offered in the poll.  The levels of support for the other policy proposals appearing in the survey were as follows:

Requiring or encouraging with tax breaks the lowering of the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants are allowed to release into the atmosphere: 70 percent.
...

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The Toledo (Ohio) Blade yesterday became the most recent in a series of newspapers around the country endorsing an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), the primary incentive that has encouraged the wind power industry's growth over the past decade.

The Blade's endorsement came in the form of a "Guest Editorial" from the New York Times--the Blade's policy is to reprint editorials that reflect its views.

The editorial calls wind power a "case in point" for a federal incentive program that has been successful: "By spurring innovation and growth, a federal production tax credit for wind amounting to 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour has ...

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The Mason City (Iowa) Globe-Gazette carried an editorial Tuesday applauding new power agreements signed by Osage (Iowa) Municipal Utilities that will save that company's customers about $4 million over 20 years by tapping the electricity generated by a new North Dakota wind farm.

While the editorial does not mention the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), the PTC has been instrumental in encouraging the development of the North Dakota project and many others like it, and can continue to do so if extended by legislation now pending in Congress.

According to the ...

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The port of Ogdensburg, N.Y., is bustling with activity these days, as wind turbines and their components for a large wind farm in upstate New York arrive by ship and rail.

Located on the St. Lawrence river northeast of Lake Ontario, Ogdensburg is a staging center for a wind farm in Churubusco, N.Y., on the state's far northern boundary.

Interviews conducted by reporter John Friot of the local Fox affiliate, WNNY-TV, tell the story.  The project means "70 jobs and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the North Country," he says, and Wade Davis, Executive Director of the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority, explains, "There's anywhere on this project ...

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The new $363-million Crow Lake Wind Project near White Lake, S.D., has just paid its first property tax bills to three rural counties in the amount of a very welcome $800,000, about $300,000 more than expected, according to delighted local authorities.

Basin Electric Cooperative operates the 162-megawatt (MW) Crow Lake wind farm, which paid $297,000 to Jerauld County, $257,000 to Brule County, and $239,000 to Aurora County, according to the Mitchell (S.D.) Republic.

The article quoted Jerauld County Director of Equalization ...

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Colorado’s Wind for Schools—a program that marked the beginning of a national movement—recently was honored with a Wirth Chair Award for its work in integrating wind energy into classrooms throughout the state.

Wind for Schools, an innovative program in that it simultaneously addresses wind industry workforce development needs and public understanding of wind energy deployment, was launched by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America initiative, based at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Wind for Schools has gotten off the ground in 11 states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, ...

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Extending the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) is part of an "all-of-the-above" approach to increasing U.S. domestic energy production, according to U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), one of the chief sponsors of a PTC extension bill.

In an interview Friday on the "Line on Agriculture" program of AgInfo.net, Mr. Reichert commented, "Most of the Republicans I talk to are in favor of all of the above and there are a lot of them who support a tax credit over ... versus the other methods that have been used to support outside entities and whatever product they might be trying to produce."

The PTC, he added, " ... isn’t a grant, it’s not a stimulus ...

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AWEA Senior Technical Programs Manager John Dunlop attended the Hannover Messe trade fair in Germany last week, where the question of whether Congress will extend the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) was a hot topic. Upon his return, John provided this analysis of why a PTC expiration will be far more damaging to far more people than in the past.

Congressional inaction was a big issue In discussions this week at Hannover Messe.  Any U.S. or foreign person who knew about U.S. politics knew about the PTC problem.  As I discussed the issue with others, it became clear that the impact will be much worse than in the early part of the last decade, when Congress failed to take timely action on three occasions and allowed the credit to ...

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