The House GOP should hold HR 3307 hostage until the Obama war against fossil fuel stops.
Environment & Energy Daily reports:
The renewable energy industry may not be as united in its push to extend an expiring incentive as recent lobbying efforts would indicate.
The solar energy industry and its main trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, have led the charge in recent weeks to convince Congress to extend a renewable energy grant program that was originally created in the 2009 stimulus law and extended for one year last December.
A handful of other industry trade groups — like the National Electrical Contractors Association, Biomass Power Association and Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association — have joined the push to extend the so-called Section 1603 Treasury Grant Program, which is currently set to expire on Dec. 31.
But noticeably absent from the effort is the wind industry.
“The 1603 program has been a real benefit to the wind industry and certainly has helped spur additional growth, but extending 1603 doesn’t get us past the end of 2012,” Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas-American Wind Technology, told senators yesterday during a Finance Committee subcommittee hearing on renewable energy tax credits.
Instead, the wind industry is focusing its efforts on securing an extension of a lucrative production tax credit that grants companies that produce electricity from wind, solar, geothermal and certain plants a hefty 2.2-cent-per-kilowatt-hour subsidy for the first 10 years of the facility’s operation. That credit is set to expire at the end of 2012.
“It’s a critical time for Congress to extend the production tax credit,” American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode said earlier this week (Greenwire, Dec. 12).
The industry is backing a bipartisan House bill (H.R. 3307) from Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) that would continue the production tax credit through 2016… [Emphasis added]
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