Wind tax credit backers ramp up campaign to greet Congress

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The Hill:

Advocates of expiring tax credits for wind power projects will greet next week’s return of Congress with a multi-front campaign for extension of the incentives in the lame-duck session.

A bipartisan group of governors, under the umbrella of the 28-member Governors’ Wind Coalition, will hold a Tuesday press conference calling for an extension of the production tax credit that’s scheduled to expire at year’s end.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad ® and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) will be at the Capitol Hill event, while Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and perhaps Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback will join by phone, an advisory states.

Separately, the Sierra Club has blanketed a Capitol Hill metro station with ads in advance of a multiday “wind week” campaign next week to promote extension of the credits.

“Wind power makes clean energy, good jobs and better future. Don’t blow it,” some of the ads state, showing images of people working on wind projects. The ads, shown here, will run for a month.

The wind industry calls the production tax credit vital to financing new projects, and says that uncertainty about its future is what’s behind a number of recent layoffs by companies such as Vestas Wind Systems.

The industry will shed 37,000 jobs if the credit expires, according to a study by the consulting firm Navigant that was commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

“Wind week” will involve labor, environmental and wind industry groups, the Sierra Club said.

“Every day that Congress delays action means more layoffs and job losses for American workers. The wind industry doesn’t just support clean energy that keeps our air free of pollution, it also feeds the families of 75,000 workers,” Sierra Club President Michael Brune said in a statement.

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There seems to have been at least one casualty of Obama's reelection...

[Rokke]

Wind tax. If they could put that in place in D.C. we'd wipe out the deficit in a month.