Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

The following letter to the editor by Carol E. Murphy appeared in Sunday's edition of the Buffalo News and is reprinted here with permission of the author. Ms. Murphy is executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

Mary Kay Barton's commentary of Aug. 14 ("Big subsidies for wind projects are 'FIT' for retirement") overlooks a number of important facts.

First, all energy sources have been subsidized over time, and wind is no exception. The question then becomes: Is the incentive that wind has been receiving excessive compared with other sources? The answer is no. A recent study from consulting firm ...

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The Heritage Foundation's blog carried an article recently by Nicholas Loris criticizing the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC). The following comment was posted in response.

Federal tax incentives have helped all of our domestic energy industries to grow and produce the energy that our economy needs to function and prosper. For new energy technologies to gain a foothold in the marketplace so that the U.S. can diversify its energy portfolio and reduce its vulnerability to fuel price shocks, some degree of initial support is needed. Given those facts, the key question is: are renewable energy incentives out of line with those that have previously supported other energy industries? One particularly informative

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The following article appeared in Thursday's edition of the Helena (Mont.) Independent Record and is reprinted here with the permission of the author, Jeff L. Fox.

Past and present, Montana a leader in wind energy

In 1927, long before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Rural Electrification Administration (REA) brought electricity to the countryside, Marcellus Jacobs from eastern Montana invented the three-bladed wind turbine for electricity production.

At night, the Jacobs family farm provided the best advertisement for the effectiveness of his new ...

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The Chicago Sun-Times has joined the list of major newspapers across the U.S. calling for an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

In a recent editorial, the Sun-Times referred to the Romney campaign's support for ending the credit as an "empty bumper sticker proposal" that risks losing the Presidential election swing state of Iowa. 

It added: "Government sometimes plays a legitimate role in nurturing emerging industries ... Throughout American history, great industries and new technologies, such as the automobile, have thrived on sympathetic government support, including tax breaks and infrastructure investments. If we ...

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The San Antonio Express-News today endorsed an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

Said the Express-News editorial in part:

"The Obama administration wants to extend the incentives, and the issue has become an election-year football. But Congress should act prior to the November election.  The administration reported that the wind power industry supports 75,000 American jobs, and the report showed that 67 percent of new wind turbine equipment used last year was domestically produced. Only 35 percent of the equipment was made domestically in 2006. The federal report cited $14 billion in wind energy investments last ...

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The Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald endorsed the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), joining many other newspapers from coast to coast--and more to the point, others in the Presidential election swing states of Iowa and Colorado--that have said they favor extending the provision.  In recent days, the Des Moines Register and the Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) have also backed the PTC.

In its editorial, the Telegraph Herald responded crisply to some of the arguments that are made against the PTC. On the question of the incentive ...

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As the presidential campaigns have taken up the question of whether to extend the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) beyond 2012, some confusion has arisen about the dollars involved.

The PTC provides a credit against taxes of 2.2 cents for each kilowatt-hour of electricity that a wind farm generates during its first 10 years in operation.

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that between today and 2015, the current PTC will result in $1.36 billion of lost tax revenue per year — but, it has leveraged $15.5 billion per year on average in new private investment.

A recent study by NextEra Energy found that wind energy generates so much ...

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The Gazette, a newspaper based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has joined the long list of papers endorsing an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

In an editorial Sunday titled "Romney should revisit wind tax issue," the Gazette noted Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad's (R) disagreement with the Republican Presidential candidate on the question. Said the editorial in part, "We agree with the governor. The tax credit has helped our state become the nation’s No. 2 producer of wind energy--providing 20 percent of our electric power. The industry includes several plants that produce wind turbines or components. Nearly 3,000 turbines spin statewide. And the industry ...

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The National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC) Sage-Grouse Research Collaborative (SGC) recently announced that it has awarded $533,500 in continued research funding in 2012 for activities related to sage-grouse and wind energy development. According to the release, the funds will support continuing research efforts for two projects in Wyoming.

The first study is focusing on the ecology of male greater sage-grouse, with respect to wind energy development, and is being led by Dr. Joshua Millspaugh, professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Missouri.  This study, taking place at Power Company of Wyoming’s Chokecherry and Sierra Madre site, will track the movement of sage-grouse ...

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Following last week's favorable vote by the Senate Finance Committee on draft legislation including an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a statement regarding his support for the extension, calling the PTC "successful in developing clean, renewable, domestically produced wind energy and the jobs that go along with it."

Grassley added, "In the face of an effort to end this incentive, I persuaded committee leaders to include the extension in a way that keeps it at full value and that puts the wind-energy production tax credit in a strong position for the floor debate this fall.  No single energy tax incentive should be singled ...

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