[The new proposal] would qualify as the 13th federal subsidy extension for wind power, dating back to 1992. Yet back in 1986, amid California’s wind subsidies, a representative of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) stated: “The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive.”
“Bipartisan senators ask Mnuchin to extend safe harbor deadlines for wind, solar projects,” reads the April 24th headline from Utility Dive.
The Brief explains:
A letter from six Green New Deal-light senators to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin states in part:
… we urge you to extend the continuity safe harbor, provided under existing Treasury Department guidance, for both the production tax credit (PTC) and energy investment tax credit (ITC), from four years to five years for projects that started construction in 2016 or 2017. This modest adjustment to the PTC and ITC guidance would help preserve tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investments and provide some certainty in these challenging times.
… the COVID-19 crisis has disrupted supply chains, construction operations, and permitting timelines, delaying projects otherwise on track to be in operation by the end of 2020. While existing IRS guidance provides certain exceptions for specified setbacks in construction, these exceptions do not anticipate nor fully capture the wideranging interruptions now faced by developers.
Providing a temporary extension of the continuity safe harbor of five years, in lieu of the current four, would address the unforeseen interruptions developers are experiencing due to COVID-19 and provide the certainty businesses need to move forward with existing projects.
Such would qualify as the 13th federal subsidy extension for wind power, dating back to 1992. Yet back in 1986, amid California’s wind subsidies, a representative of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) stated: “The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive.” Which brings to mind what Milton and Rose Friedman stated in 1997:
The infant industry argument is a smoke screen. The so-called infants never grow up.
The uneconomic remains so because of basic energy physics in light of consumer preference. And in this case, the uneconomic is also cronyism unbound.
It is time for a flight to quality to dense, reliable energies, those being natural gas, coal, and oil.
This is why so many of us despise Washington, D.C. and everything associated with it.
The history of government expansion by Roosevelt I to the “Archangel” Woodrow (thank you, Henry Mencken) to Roosevelt II to the flat-out thief and crook Lyndon Johnson all the way to the present day has done nothing except produce systemic corruption and attract an endless line of grifters.
[…] Wind Power: Subsidy after Subsidy after Subsidy …. […]
Really interesting analysis to know how the government is working on clean energy.
Thanks for sharing!