Dive Brief:
- Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee officially launched a package of tax extenders, which renew the life of tax breaks or incentives for a plethora of purposes – but not the production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy, which expired in December.
- PTC backers will look to add an extension later, as the committee amends the bill in sessions scheduled to start Thursday. Tax committee watchers don't expect a package to pass Congress until late this year, after congressional election season. The wind industry is used to retroactive reinstatement of the credit.
- The bill released Tuesday contains dozens of extenders, including two-year extensions for plug-in electric motorcycles and construction of energy-efficient homes.
Dive Insight:
Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon is a longtime supporter of the wind PTC and is fully expected to champion it as senators negotiate their tax package in classic bargaining mode. He says, however, that he plans this bill to be the last extenders bill – if so, then backers will want to craft a credit that provides a comfortable phase-out period, something they have been talking about for a couple of years as political headwinds mounted against the credit.
PTC-lobbying efforts have strong players, including the 23-member Governors' Wind Energy Coalition. A letter from four of them on Monday pressed the point to congressional leaders. Two Democratic governors, from Oregon and Washington, and two Republicans, from South Dakota and Iowa, urged PTC extension whether or not comprehensive tax reform is enacted. "The livelihood of our citizens should not be sacrificed while longer-term, economy-wide tax code solutions are debated," the letter said.
