GOP senators warn Grassley against extending wind subsidies
Credit: By Josh Siegel | Washington Examiner | July 20, 2020 |
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota is leading a group of nine Republican senators warning fellow Republican Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Finance Committee, not to allow for the extension of wind tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.
The senators, most from major fossil fuel-producing states, say wind has become cost competitive with other energy sources and does not need federal subsidies anymore. Grassley, an Iowa senator, is a leading champion of the wind industry. His state had the second-most installed capacity of wind as of April. Iowa generates 42% of its electricity from wind.
The wind production tax credit “was supposed to be temporary in order to level the playing field with other power generators,” the senators write in a letter they are sending to Grassley Tuesday morning. “However, over time, the reverse has occurred. This tax provision has become a competitive advantage to wind generators.”
Congress should avoid continuing the wind tax credit when it considers extensions of expiring tax provisions or through the appropriations process later this year, the senators will tell Grassley.
The other senators signing the letter are John Barrasso, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Lamar Alexander, Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Enzi, John Hoeven, James Lankford, Pat Toomey, and Jim Inhofe.
Congress already gave an extra year of life to the wind production tax credit, which was set to expire at the end of 2019, in December as part of year-end must-pass spending legislation, fulfilling a Grassley priority.
House Democrats have more recently prioritized extending the wind production tax credit again. Democrats extended a variety of clean energy tax credits, including for wind production, as part of an infrastructure package the House passed this month, to help the renewable industry recover from massive job losses from the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate never took up the bill.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2020/07/21/gop-senators-warn-grassl...
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Comment
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Comment by Jim Wiegand on July 31, 2020 at 1:42pm
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If DC had any ethics, a corrupt dirtbag like Grassely would never be chairman of the Finance Committee or be in a position to allow fraud based corporations, rob taxpayers
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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