A Blustery Day on The Hill

AWEAIt’s lobby week on The Hill and Congresspersons will be meeting with representatives from a variety of industries lobbying for their causes. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has organized a whole day of events, meetings and lobbying to educate Congress on the business of wind.

We spoke with Bree Raum, the organizer of the AWEA’s lobby day, about this exercise in practical politics. Top on the day’s agenda is the Production Tax Credit, a tax credit which keeps the wind industry in the black and is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. “We need that production tax credit extension yesterday!” Raum told us. “We’re really focusing on the Senate because the Senate has been the issue. The House has passed [the PTC] three times but we’re still a vote short in the Senate.”

With 80 registered reps from the wind energy industry, the AWEA hopes to show Congress what a large industry wind energy is. “I think overall they don’t know how many of us there really are,” Raum said. “They see a wind farm and a blade factory they think that’s it. But no. There are so many jobs in the component suppliers. There are jobs all the way down the supply chain.”

The AWEA hopes to sway just one Senator tomorrow to back the PTC. While the House just passed the PTC’s renewal last week Raum doesn’t hold any hope for it making through the Senate. The problem is, she explained, is that this version of the PTC is wrapped up in repeals of tax breaks for oil companies, something neither the Senate nor the President would approve.

The PTC will have to be reintroduced without the sticky oil politics. The plan is to renew the PTC for at least three years, an improvement over the traditionally short-lived one and two year extensions its gotten in the past. Without the PTC wind energy investments will crash just like they have the previous times Congress allowed the tax credit to lapse.

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