From Senator Charles Grassley –
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa authored and won enactment of the first-ever wind energy production tax credit in 1992. The incentive was designed to give wind energy the ability to compete against coal-fired and nuclear energy and helped to launch the wind energy industry. He has worked to extend the credit ever since. He made the following comment on President Obama’s visit to Iowa on wind energy this week.
“I’m glad the President likes Iowa but his visit won’t have much to do with getting the wind energy tax credit extended. He could travel down the street from the White House to the Capitol and talk to the congressional leadership instead, especially in the Senate, controlled by his party. It was surprising to read in the paper this week that he hasn’t talked to key committee chairmen in his own party in months. Maybe the lack of communication is why the President and the Senate Democrats let the biodiesel tax credit expire at the end of 2011 and made that industry suffer from uncertain tax policy.
“There’s strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate for extending the wind energy tax credit. I introduced a bill with bipartisan co-sponsors in March, for example. The provision is hung up in the lack of a way forward on dozens of expiring tax provisions. The President could exert his leadership by working with Congress on a way forward instead of calling for a provision that’s a no-brainer for many of us. He’s focusing on the easy part of a bigger task. The stakes for the wind industry and the country in general will only get worse with delay. It’s time to act, not politick.”
Information on Grassley’s bipartisan bill to extend the wind energy tax credit is available here.
Peter,
Oil should not have subsidies either. Because we have a commodities market, the production of oil and the price of oil have nothing in common. We have legalized gambling in the commodities market. How dumb is that, and we end up paying for that stupid system at the gas pump!
Pushing green energy on us using tax subsidies and government mandates is what I am talking about that upsets the cost in the market place. It is actually driving the the price of electricity up.
You must compare apples and apples and you are comparing applies and oranges.
Does this help?
You know Mr. Grassley that your tax credits are costing the consumers electric bills to go up.
If we are going to have to pay for these wind mills then the energy they produce should be free to us.
We want to live in a free enterprise country where we have a level playing field and every product competes on it’s own merit.
Your tax subsidies screw the free enterprise system up and cause electric rates to rise to us consumers. Mine have went from 7 to 14 cents per KWH and soon they will be over 20cents. I have been told by the REC that we should expect 30cents per KWH in the near future because you fools in Washington are mandating 20% of the energy be purchased from this green BS.
Get it off our back! It is taking food off the table!