Wind Energy

PTC, wind energy make America safer

Comments Rivas, "As a combat veteran, I am trained to also consider the security risks of not embracing a new and more effective way forward. Where our energy sources are concerned, those risks are higher than you might think.

"During my time serving in Iraq, I experienced first-hand how troops are forced to expose themselves to danger in order to replenish their fuel supply. And recent statistics show that for every 24 convoys that set out in Afghanistan, a soldier is killed or injured. The threat back home certainly isn’t as immediate, but our collective addiction to fossil fuels is keeping true independence, freedom and security just out of our reach."

Rivas notes that a number of military installations in the U.S. use wind turbines and solar energy to supply the equivalent of all or much of their electricity. Of the PTC, he adds, "It’s not left; it’s not right; it’s forward. The Production Tax Credit already has bipartisan support, making it a viable policy for the future."

The PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of electricity production from utility-scale turbines. It is set to expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress extends it first. A recent study by Navigant Consulting found that extending the Production Tax Credit will allow the industry to grow to 100,000 jobs in just four years, while an expiration would kill 37,000 jobs within a year.

A House bill seeking to extend the PTC has 101 cosponsors, including 23 Republicans, while a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by seven Senators, including three Republicans. PTC extension efforts have received the endorsement of a broad coalition of more than 370 members, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Western Governors’ Association. A PTC extension also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Governors Association, and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes 23 Republican and Democratic Governors from across the U.S. A PTC extension has been endorsed by a number of newspapers across the country, including the Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, the Denver Post, the Daily Oklahoman, and the Toledo Blade.

Tom Gray, www.awea.org/blog