WASHINGTON, DC, US, July 18, 2008. The battle over funding for the
US Production Tax Credit (PTC) is still in a stalemate following the 4 July
recess, the American Wind
Energy Association (AWEA) reports.
The PTC is set to expire at the end of the year, and although the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrats) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (Republicans) agree the PTC should be extended, no agreement can be reached on how to fund it.
The Democrats favour offsetting the cost of tax extensions, whereas the Republicans say offsets are unnecessary, and so the tug of war continues.
Oil for Wind
The wind industry itself has received backing from an unlikely source, however. Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has launched a campaign to boost wind power production as a measure to strengthen the US economy and energy security.
The public campaign dubbed the Pickens Plan, intends to increase the use of wind energy for electricity generation and using natural gas saved from the electricity sector for transportation fuel. The self-funded, multi-media advertising and internet education campaign is designed to focus attention on what Pickens calls the “single biggest crisis facing America toady”.
Under the Pickens Plan the US could cut imported oil by one-third, saving more than US$230 billion a year. In line with the US Department of Energy (DoE), Pickens calls for wind to supply 20% of the country’s electricity. He proposes to get most of the wind energy from the “wind corridor” stretching from Texas to Canada.
“The plan I am unveiling today is doable in 5-10 years if we can get Congress and the administration to act quickly,” says Pickens. “It is based on domestic resources and it’s clean. The plan provides a bridge to the future where renewable energy can become an even greater portion of our energy framework.”
The AWEA says it welcomes the Pickens Plan, but Executive Director Randall Swisher warns that “in order to make this happen, the US government will need to play its part and enact short- and long-term policies to transform many of our current practices. Of critical and immediate importance is an extension of the federal production tax credit, so that the industry can move ahead with planned investments and keep people at work. Of equal importance will be longer-term policies to plan for more transmission to bring large amounts of wind power from windy areas to population centres.”
The wind power industry employs around 50,000 Americans, according to the AWEA, and created 10,000 new domestic jobs in 2007 alone. The association warns that if the PTC is not extended, more than US$11bn investment in clean energy will be at risk.
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