TAXPAYER ALERT:  Big Wind Urging Congress for Yet Another Bailout

By Mary Kay Barton 

“Industrial wind can NEVER provide modern reliable, dispatchable, baseload power; has cost far more jobs than it creates; and is destroying the very environment they claim they wish to save.”

Taxpayers beware! While you’ve been busy just trying to make ends meet, wondering why the cost of everything is going up, and how your children and grandchildren will ever pay the mounting $18 TRILLION dollar national debt – the wind industry lobbyists’ group, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), just sent Congress a letter seeking the extension of the federal, taxpayer-funded wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

The list of signers to AWEA’s letter include rent-seeking industries and ‘green’ groups who’ve all benefitted by tapping into taxpayers’ wallets via the Wind PTC (aka: Pork-To-Cronies). It certainly isn’t hard to figure out why these corporations pay many $Millions of dollars to run national TV advertising campaigns geared at convincing crony-politicians to vote to continue these TAXES on American citizens.

AWEA’a letter is typical of wind industry propaganda – making specious claims about jobs and pollution reduction, without providing a shred of evidence to PROVE any of their claims. It appears AWEA is hoping that Congressional officials are “too stupid” to understand what energy-literate citizens nationwide know:  Industrial wind can NEVER provide modern reliable, dispatchable, baseload power; has cost far more jobs than it creates; and is destroying the very environment they claim they wish to save.

The reality: After 22+ years of picking U.S. taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ pockets, industrial wind has NOT significantly reduced CO2 emissions, nor has it shuttered any conventional power plants – anywhere. The $Trillions spent on these “green” boondoggles to date however, have significantly added to the $18+ TRILLION dollar debt that our children and grandchildren will have to bear.

AWEA’s own statements of years and decades past can be used against them. Thirty-one years ago, a study coauthored by AWEA stated:

The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D. [1]

Our government should NOT be in the business of picking and choosing the winners and losers in the energy marketplace – while assaulting the very citizens they are forcing to pay for this ‘green’ energy scam. It’s time for government to get out of the way and let the markets work!  The best solutions will rise to the top of their own accord because they will provide modern power at the best prices – which will assure maintaining the reliable, affordable power that has made America great.

Citizens nation-wide have woken up to this massive ‘green’ energy scam, and many have sent letters to Congress (like the one below). 

You can join the fight by contacting your representatives and urging them to do the right thing – Protect American consumers, taxpayers and ratepayers – END Wind Welfare (#EndWindWelfare)!

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[1]  American Wind Energy Association, et al. (1983) Quoted in Renewable Energy Industry, Joint Hearing before the Subcommittees of the Committee on Energy and Commerce et al., House of Representatives, 98^th Cong., 1^st sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983), p. 52.

New York State Citizens' Letter:

Citizens’ Plea - DO NOT REINSTATE

                  the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC)

Dear New York State Representatives:

We, the undersigned, join millions of U.S. taxpayers & ratepayers nationwide in urging you and your colleagues to eliminate the 22-year old wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

You should know by now that wind energy is a NET technical, economic and environmental loser.  Why would we want to waste $Billions more of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on a net loser? 

The addition of industrial wind in the U.S. has not reduced our need to maintain and build reliable generation, nor does it add materially to our job force. Because wind energy is so diffuse, unreliable and volatile, it can never supply the firm capacity modern power demands, but instead creates unprecedented industrial sprawl - responsible for massive Habitat Fragmentation (cited as the main reason for species decline), devastated civility in targeted townships, and lost rural heritage as landscapes are forever-changed.

Renewable energy tax policy has also fostered a generation of developers bent on sticking turbines on every free acre that has transmission access, no matter who is in the way. It is simply unconscionable that, to date, no U.S. elected official has called for appropriate health studies to be done to protect the health, safety, and welfare of U.S. citizens who are suffering as a result of ending up stuck within the sprawling footprints of industrial wind factories. As a result, it’s no surprise that more than twelve active lawsuits are pending against wind projects in as many states, with many more sure to follow.

The issues surrounding wind power expansion also impact energy prices and disrupt otherwise functional markets.  The PTC provides project owners with a significant out-of-market revenue source[1], which invokes predatory pricing practices that unfairly harm the economics of reliable generators. There is no justification for a government program that manipulates otherwise healthy, competitive businesses.

After 22-years of tax credits, the business of big wind is not about energy production. It’s about tax avoidance. Warren Buffet recently reminded us that wind investment makes no sense without the handouts from taxpayers. Wind energy will never be competitive with the price of the fuel it saves, and would not exist but for the PTC.

  

After more than two decades, the wind industry is well situated to stand on its own without the PTC. It is unreasonable to continue to force taxpayers to support it. Your constituents know it, and you should, too.  

This is why we respectfully request that Congress resist any temptation to reinstate the expired PTC or associated investment tax credit (ITC).

Respectfully submitted,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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[1] At 2.3¢/kWh, the subsidy's pre-tax value (3.5¢/kWh) equals, or exceeds the wholesale price of power in much of the country.

Article Link:  https://www.masterresource.org/american-wind-energy-association/33152/