SENATE TAX PACKAGE INCLUDES
FIVE-YEAR EXTENSION OF WIND CREDIT
AWEA's Steve Views News as 'Important Milestone'
In Effort to Extend Key Clean Energy Incentive
A full five-year extension of the federal wind energy production tax credit (PTC) is
included in the just-released Senate tax package assembled by Senate Finance Committee
Chairman Bill Roth (R-Del.)
The bill would extend the PTC through June 30, 2004, while also providing it retroactively
to June 30, 1999, when it expired. The PTC provision, first enacted in 1992, provided a
1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour credit (adjusted for inflation) for electricity generated by
wind power plants.
"This is a very important milestone on the road toward securing a PTC extension in
law," said Jaime Steve, AWEA legislative director. "In achieving this initial
success, the wind industry is particularly thankful to our Senate sponsors, Sens. Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa), Jim Jeffords (R-Vt.), and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)," Steve added.
Prior to its inclusion in the wide-ranging $792-billion package, Grassley's stand-alone
wind PTC bill (S. 414) attracted 25 sponsors, including 10 members of the tax-writing
Finance Committee. A five-year PTC extension has also been endorsed by the Clinton
Administration, which included the proposal in its Fiscal Year 2000 (FY '00) budget
proposal.
"Despite the support of 137 sponsors in the House of Representatives, AWEA has never
expected the PTC extension would be included in a House tax package," Steve
explained. "We have always anticipated that this issue would be subject to
negotiation at the conference committee stage of the process, during which differences are
worked out between final versions of
House and Senate tax bills."
A House-Senate conference on initial Congressional tax legislation may occur in early
August. Should Congress pass tax legislation, it is widely anticipated that the bill would
face a Presidential veto based on disagreements over the size and shape of overall tax
cuts, as well as treatment of Social Security and Medicare. "Under this
scenario," Steve said, "the Congressional leadership would likely undertake a
second attempt at fashioning a bill more likely to gain Presidential approval."
See the list of sponsors of, and issues associated with, the House and Senate PTC renewal bills. |
