Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today urged the Senate to support the wind production tax credit (PTC) which is currently up for debate as part of a broader Tax Extenders bill.
Bennet included a two-year extension of the wind PTC in the Tax Extenders bill during debate in the Senate Finance Committee. Bennet worked with Republican Senator Charles Grassley from Iowa and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell to secure the wind PTC amendment in committee last month.
“The wind PTC supports thousands of jobs up and down the supply chain in Colorado,” Bennet said. “It has triggered tremendous economic growth in Colorado, and a two-year extension will provide much-needed certainty to this growing industry. If Congress continues to delay passing this critical extension, we risk repeating the economic damage we experienced when the PTC was allowed to expire the last time around.”
Bennet has led efforts in Congress to extend the wind energy PTC. In 2012, he led eight of the nine members of the Colorado Congressional delegation in a bipartisan letter calling for an extension of the tax credit and introduced two bipartisan amendments with Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), and cosponsored by Senator Mark Udall, to extend the PTC. He also partnered with Senators Grassley and Udall that year to introduce the American Energy and Job Promotion Act, a bipartisan bill to extend the PTC for wind and several other renewable energy technologies. Bennet successfully led a bipartisan group of senators urging the Senate Finance Committee to include an extension of the PTC in the 2012 tax extenders bill the committee considered.
Colorado generates the sixth highest percentage of power from wind of any state in the nation. It is home to several major wind energy developers and wind turbine manufacturing facilities, employing upwards of 5,000 workers statewide.
Nationally, a permanent expiration of the wind production tax credit could cost as many as 37,000 jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Association.