Fra The Hill om forlængelse af den amerikanske skatterabat til vindmøller
The fight is on, again, over which tax credits will make the cut in this latest round of extender bills. The House of Representatives just passed HR 5771 which revives dozens of lapsed tax credits totaling $42 billion, including the controversial wind production tax credit (PTC) that expired last year. If approved by the Senate, HR 5771 will reinstate the 22-year old ‘temporary’ subsidy retroactively for 2014.
Wind proponents argue the 1-year extension is akin to no extension at all. They paint a dire economic picture of curtailed project development, lost jobs and the unraveling of an entire manufacturing sector. A failure to extend the PTC, they claim, will effectively impose an unfair tax on the industry in the form of higher wind prices. Those who oppose the credit are collectively dismissed as Koch-brother sympathizers, a narrative that has worked short term — after all, it’s easy to hate big oil. But the label is flatly false.
The Grassroots Speak
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Leading up to the House vote, a grassroots network of thousands (and thousands!) of Americans nationwide quietly signed letters to Congress asking their representatives, and the leadership, to vote ‘no’ on any extension of the wind PTC. The signers, all regular, main street Americans impacted by the subsidy-driven push for more wind everywhere, hope their voices will be heard past the slick wind-marketing campaigns and paid mouthpieces with access.
They tell a different story as reflected in these excerpts from the letters sent:
Indiana: “Most of the [nearly 3000] Hoosiers who have signed this letter are directly threatened by the choice you will make. We live in the communities impacted by wind development. Many of our local elected officials have passed restrictive ordinances that effectively ban wind development due to the harms to our local economies, property values, health, wildlife and employment. The PTC encourages wind development in inappropriate places – it has fostered a generation of developers who are rewarded for siting turbines on every free acre that has transmission access, no matter who is in the way or how poor the wind resource.”
