Pingree and Golden renege on ending the wind PTC at the end of this year
Mars Hill
Several years ago the wind industry pleaded "one last time" for an extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC). This was to be the last extension of this perennially renewing "temporary" giveaway:
Under PATH (Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-113, Div. Q, 129 Stat. 2242), facilities that begin construction before January 1, 2017, are eligible to receive 100% of the PTC. After that, projects that start construction in 2017, 2018 and 2019 could receive 80%, 60% and 40% of the wind PTC respectively, after which the PTC is eliminated.
So here we are in the PTC's last year, and in a letter to the U.S. Ways & Means Committee, a number of representatives, including our own Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden appear to be attempting to renege on the planned sunset at the end of this year. You can read the letter here:
https://stevens.house.gov/sites/stevens.house.gov/files/documents/C...
A couple of screenshots provide excerpts below. Also included is contact information for Pingree and Golden.
U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree
Washington, DC Office
2162 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20515
(202) 225-6116
Portland Office
2 Portland Fish Pier, Suite 304
Portland, ME 04101
(207) 774-5019
Waterville Office
1 Silver Street
Waterville, ME 04901
(207) 873-5713
EMAIL: https://pingree.house.gov/contact/contactform.htm
U.S. Representative Jared Golden
(202) 225-6306
Email:
Views: 491
Comment
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Comment by Stephen Littlefield on April 7, 2019 at 6:56pm
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Excellent points Willem, many I've made elsewhere, many I wish I'd made! Thank You for all your relevant information!
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Those two fools know nothing about analyzing energy systems and spout whatever lobbyists give them for talking points to delude/deceive already-struggling Joe and Jane Worker in Maine’s near zero growth economy.
They want to destroy the pristine ridgelines of Maine to put up 400 ft tall wind turbines that will in no way do anything regarding global warming, but that will line their pockets with campaign contributions, aka bribes, and the pockets of multi millionaires with tax shelters.
Those wind turbines use millions of tons of strategic rare earth metals from China, which has 60% of the world market.
Do they not know damaging the ecosystems of a forest will degrade its ability to sequester CO2?
What will provide the peaking, filling in and balancing services, 24/7/365, if gas turbine plants are shut down and variable, intermittent wind and solar, dependent on NE’s mediocre winds and sunshine, become the dominant electricity sources on thé NE grid and nearby grids?
What happens during 5 to 7 day wind/solar lulls, which occur at random throughout the year?
Would they use massive 500,000 MWh battery systems, at a turnkey cost of $400/kWh, and that would last about 15 years?
The insanity of it all only exists because of the grossly excessive, direct and indirect subsidies, and these two want even more subsidies.
People by the tens of thousands need to start wearing yellow vests and march to the state house to demonstrate against wind turbines, and environmental destruction, before it is too late.
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Please read this section.
You will learn how the Wall Street types benefit from the RE subsidy bonanza.
Wall Street and its paid RE sycophants will fight tooth and nail to maintain their profitable status quo.
They will give bribe money and study grants to whomever is spouting the right mantras to keep their party going.
The rest of US will be made to suffer/are collateral damage, until this hoax finally runs its wasteful course/dies out.
WIND AND SOLAR SUBSIDIES WOULD PROVIDE A BONANZA FOR WALL STREET
This URL shows wind and solar prices per kWh would be at least 45% to 55% higher without subsidies, and they would be even higher, if the costs of other items were properly allocated to the owners of wind and solar projects. See below section High Levels of Wind and Solar Require Energy Storage.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/economics-of-tesla-powe...
This URL shows about 2/3 of the financial value of a wind project is due to direct and indirect subsidies, and the other 1/3 is due to electricity sales.
http://johnrsweet.com/Personal/Wind/PDF/Schleede-BigMoney-20050414.pdf
An owner of a wind and solar project, looking to shelter taxable income from other businesses, is allowed to depreciate in 6 years almost the entire cost of a wind and solar project under the IRS scheme called Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System, MARCS; the normal period for other forms of utility depreciation is about 20 years
Then, with help of Wall Street financial wizardry from financial tax shelter advisers, such as BNEF*, JPMorgan, etc., the owner sells the project to a new owner who is allowed to depreciate almost his entire cost all over again.
The loss of tax revenues to federal and state governments due to MARCS is estimated by the IRS at $266 billion for the 5-y period of 2017 - 2021, about $53.2 billion/y; the IRS is required to annually provide a 5-yr running estimate to Congress, by law. This indirect largesse is in addition to total of direct federal and state subsidies to such projects of about $25 billion/y.
* BNEF is Bloomberg New Energy Finance, owned by the pro-RE former Mayor Bloomberg of New York, which provides financial services to the wealthy of the world, including providing them with tax avoidance schemes.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68227.pdf
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tax-equity-investors-b...
Warren Buffett quote: "I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire's tax rate," Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. "For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit."
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Comment by Long Islander on April 5, 2019 at 11:45am
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Sorry about the Pingree email link which expired. I've since updated it above. Thank you Donna.
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Comment by Donna Amrita Davidge on April 5, 2019 at 11:41am
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This is what I wrote not so golden jared- the weblink for pingree did not work for me too bd she would have received the same message
Shame on you for wanting to extend the PTC for the lying cheating harmful wind industry that are involved in greed not green energy- many Mainers lives have been ruined as well as forests destroyed, friends and families divide and wildlife harmed or killed. Made of fiberglass, run on oil these things are the ultimate scam.
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They have to LINE THE POCKETS OF THEIR DONERS!
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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on April 5, 2019 at 11:36am
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I expected NO Less from either of them. Maybe that is why I would never vote for either.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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