“The federal PTC should expire since it has morphed from an ill-designed temporary subsidy for a purportedly ‘infant industry,’ into an inequitable tax hand-out for what is clearly a well-established industry that distorts markets and allows wind to compete unfairly with both conventional generation resources and even other types of renewables.”
– David Dismukes, “Removing Big Wind’s Training Wheels: The Case for Ending the Federal Production Tax Credit,” November 2012.
The federal wind Production Tax Credit (“PTC”), first enacted in 1992[1] to “jump start” a nascent, but promising industry,[2] provides wind producers with a subsidy of $22 per megawatt hour of electricity generated.[3] The PTC has been extended seven times, [4]but is scheduled to expire under current law on December 31, 2012. Extension of the federal wind PTC has become the “stalking horse” in the debate on government’s role in picking energy “winners and losers.”…