Republicans To Repeal PTC For Wind - here is something to email/call your Congressmen about

[Bill USA]

US congressional Republicans have long hobbled wind development. In April, they introduced a bill to kill it off entirely.
(all emphases my own)

Republicans kill PTC

The surprisingly forthrightly named PTC Elimination Act introduced in the House by Rep. Marchant and cosponsored by 15 more Republicans, H.R. 1901, would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to phaseout and repeal the credit for electricity produced from certain renewable resources.”

“The wind lobby says it wants certainty on the wind PTC and that’s exactly what this bill accomplishes,” said American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle.

Right. Certain death.

H.R. 1901 would not just eliminate the PTC for future projects [font size="+1" color="red"]but also retroactively alter PTCs already in place[/font], according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA):

[font size=5"] If you care about doing something about Global Warming, this is something you should call/email your Congressmen about. [/font]

[bananas]

1. Sourcewatch on the right-wing American Energy Alliance

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Energy_Alliance

[freshwest]

2. WTH? Why don't they drop the name Republican and call themseleves the Koch Party? n/t

[kristopher]

3. The legislation passed Finance Committee 23-3

Your article is pretty old for such a hair-on-fire response. It is going to be extended. But I'll allow that contacting your congress critter to let them know how much you appreciate their support of all renewables is always a great idea.

American wind power continues to ramp up in 2015
Policy stability critical so industry doesn’t face another cliff
July 22, 2015

Washington, D.C., July 22, 2015 — With 1,661 megawatts (MW) of newly installed wind turbines coming online during the second quarter of 2015 and more than 13,600 MW under construction, American wind power continues to increase its contribution to the U.S. electric power grid. The approval in May of Florida’s first purchase of wind energy, from a wind project in Oklahoma, added to the growing trend of Southeastern states purchasing wind power, as did the recent announcement of the first utility-scale wind farm to be built in North Carolina.

Building on that momentum, Congress also took a step in the right direction yesterday when the U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted 23-3 to extend the primary federal tax incentives for growing renewable energy as part of a larger tax policy extension bill.

“With a near-record amount of wind capacity under construction, this looks to be a strong year for American wind power,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). “However, to create longer term stability for the industry the full Senate and the House of Representatives must move quickly to extend the PTC and ITC. Hence the overwhelming bipartisan vote by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday to extend the PTC and ITC is good news for the 73,000 Americans employed by the wind power industry.”

The federal renewable energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), which has the option to be taken as an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) instead, is the primary federal tax incentive for wind energy. This incentive has helped drive more than $100 billion in private investment in the U.S since 2008, and has been instrumental in allowing the industry to lower costs by more than 50 percent in the last five years....

http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=7732

[Bill USA]

4. May is 'old'.LOL. glad to hear the Senate is on board, but the bill mentioned in OP is in the House.

"hair on fire" response?.. the issue of renewable energy in any form is too important

-- [font size="+1"]and too much at risk with Republicans having so much power in Congress[/font] to warrant adolescent remarks re concern for keeping the PTC alive. The battles with the GOP to keep the PTC in effect go on virtually every year. The risk of losing the PTC is very real. Nobody who is interested in promoting Renewable Energy in general, or Wind Power in particular, should think the concern I expressed in OP is somehow 'over the top'.

Here is some more from article referenced in OP , since you obviously didn't read the rest of it:
(all emphases my own)

The last time the PTC was extended, it was already bad enough, at just a few-week extension at the end of the year, an essentially meaningless extension in a development environment where siting, permitting, financing projects take, well, duh: more than a coupla weeks. This ain’t fracking.

Four times more new wind generating capacity came online in 2014 than in 2013, [font color="red"]when wind deployment was down 92% from 2012 levels {and 2014 installs were lower still_Star}[/font] because of policy uncertainty over what turned out to be a brief lapse, but costing 30,000 wind industry jobs before picking up again.

[font size="+1"]Despite the roller coaster of this never-ending battle over the PTC with congressional Republicans[/font], wind power has lurched along to become our cheapest utility-scale electricity, budged forward every year or so by the PTC. And that is what has the fossil fuel industry riled up to the point of proposing to eliminate it altogether.

So far, 15 Republicans have cosponsored H.R. 1901.{note: as of 8/11 the bill has 41 cosponsors according to PopVox. Do I need to say they are all Republicans?_Star} But the fossil energy industry appears to have put it on the front burner. Modeled on the infamous “climate pledge” required of candidates for Republican seats in congress, AEA will include co-sponsoring the PTC Elimination Act as a component of a Member’s final score in their American Energy Scorecard, a litmus test of their loyalty to the fossil energy industry.

Here is the record of new capacity installations over the last 14 years from AWEA:


[font size="+1"] Note how the installed capacity [font size="5"]flattened out[/font] from 2012 to 2014. This is due to Republican obstructionism.[/font]





With the GOP having so much power in Congress, and given the almost annual battles to approve the PTC over the life of the Wind Energy support initiative, calling my comment a "hair of fire" response is farcical and quite out of touch with the reality of the challenge of keeping support for Wind energy alive in Congress.


Anybody who is interested in promoting renewable energy in general and wind energy in particular should make their feelings known about the House bill to kill the Wind Energy PTC to their Congressmen. Given the chance, the GOP will certainly kill any and all renewable energy support that threatens their fossil fuel industry controllers.

[kristopher]

5. That graph is wrong.

It is found at this link: http://www.awea.org/Resources/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=5059

Here is the text that goes with it: Total U.S. installed wind capacity, through 4Q 2014: 65,879 MW

Note that the graph on that page matches the text. The copy that is linked to when you click the chart (the one you've posted), however, is an earlier one that doesn't reflect anything past 1Q. There is another one in the third quarter summary report showing installation to the end of 2Q. http://awea.files.cms-plus.com/FileDownloads/pdfs/3Q2014%20AWEA%20Market%20Report%20Public%20Version.pdf

Wind hasn't hit the doldrums and the PTC is going to pass. Let's just hope they strip out funds for ethanol.

BTW "Hair on fire" refers to your belief that making everything bold and red somehow enhances the impact of what you're posting. It doesn't. It just makes you seem a bit manic.