Senators to Obama: Stop Sending Tax Dollars to China
By Scott Paul
March 4, 2010
"Four Democratic senators want to ensure that tax dollars are creating clean energy manufacturing jobs in America, not China. Now, they are under vigorous attack by the Obama administration and multinational companies, many of whom have heavily subsidized operations in Europe and Asia.
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Yet, the senators—Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Robert Casey, D-Pa.; and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, are being criticized for their new legislation by wind energy corporations as well as the Energy Department.
Here's the simple truth. Multinational companies still source too many wind turbine parts from overseas. The wind industry acknowledges that while generating capacity in America grew substantially last year, their manufacturing jobs base in the U.S. actually shrank. That's quite simply a consequence of heavy outsourcing, which is encouraged by every tax dollar that finds its way into a global, rather than domestic, supply chain.
Over time, the domestic content of wind turbines in the U.S. could grow, but not without the right incentives. And the most effective incentive is ensuring that tax credits, loan guarantees, and other forms of federal assistance are geared toward building capacity, manufacturing and jobs right here in America. From my vantage point, it doesn't make a difference whether the company is purely domestic or a subsidiary of a European turbine maker; what matters is where the jobs are created with the tax dollars.
I know of incredible entrepreneurs who have applied for Energy Department loan guarantees--backing that is required to build new wind turbine parts factories in America—but who were shunned in favor of well-established, multinational manufacturers of wind turbines with largely foreign supply chains. Imagine that: U.S. companies are denied federal assistance to build new factories in the Midwest, eliminating the opportunity for hundreds of skilled workers to get back on the job, while multinational companies are granted hundreds of millions of dollars to import parts from Asia and Europe.
Schumer first raised this issue with the administration more than four months ago after the announcement of a made-in-China Texas windfarm seeking federal assistance--but the response he received was completely inadequate. The senators are not seeking to permanently end federal support for clean energy development; they merely want to direct it to where it should be in the first place: building manufacturing jobs in communities all over our nation that will provide the foundation for our clean energy economy.
Two red herrings will inevitably get raised in this debate. The administration and wind energy multinationals are bound to cite all of the domestic jobs that are being created through wind energy investment—primarily in installation and ......
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http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010030904/aams-scott-paul-senate-obama-stop-sending-tax-dollars-china
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