Southern Alliance head urges: Extend the PTC
The Nashville Tennessean carried an op-ed Sunday from Stephen Smith, Executive Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, calling for an extension of the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) to “create domestic jobs, provide clean, safe energy, and lower monthly bills.”
Regarding jobs, Smith wrote, “More than 400 facilities in 43 states are involved in wind power manufacturing — a 12-fold increase over the past six years. As the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes, 'Wind turbine manufacturing is at the core of the multifaceted wind power industry. Because of the use of castings, forgings, and machining, turbine manufacturing is a significant contributor to U.S. heavy manufacturing.' This is an American success story, with the PTC for wind driving it. Congress needs to extend the PTC and keep taxes stable and low on wind to keep this success story going.”
With Congress not yet acting on a PTC extension (it expires at the end of this year), as many as 1,000 manufacturing jobs at seven factories in Tennessee alone could be threatened, Smith said.
While it creates new manufacturing jobs, the PTC is also helping the wind industry provide stably priced electric power at competitive rates, Smith added, pointing to a transmission project proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners which will carry 7,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to Memphis at a cost expected to be about 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
“As families and businesses struggle, it’s high time for Congress and policy makers like Sen. [Lamar] Alexander [R-Tenn.] to focus on ideas and efforts that will create jobs, support clean safe energy, and get our economy moving again.”
(The Southeast's growing prominence in the wind power supply chain will be a major focus of the WINDPOWER 2012 Conference & Exhibition, scheduled for June 3-6 in Atlanta, Ga. Atlanta is a manufacturing hub, and holds tremendous potential to play a major role in the further expansion of wind development as a source of competitive energy for America. Atlanta’s global access, innovation, and talent create an unparalleled logistics network that could prove to be an important link in the wind industry supply chain, helping to supply demand and boost the efficiency, predictability, and consistency of wind project development in the U.S.)
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