Deja Vu All Over Again: Congressional Republicans Intent on Nixing Wind ...

22.02.12

Congressional Republicans this past week scuttled an effort to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy as part of a bill that renews Pres. Obama’s payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits extension.

Both Democrats and Republicans want economic growth and development—just ask any one or the other any time. It’s abundantly clear that they have irreconcilable differences as to just what kind of growth is good growth, as well as how best to go about fostering it in the current economic and social environment, however.

The wind energy PTC has been a boon to a US market and industry going through youthful growing pains. It’s helped attract billions of dollars of investment; helped create many thousands of good jobs in an emerging industry that’s going to prove vital in the decades ahead; yielded substantial avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, air, water and land pollution; and improved health conditions.

Clearly, Republicans won’t stand for any such things. ‘Socialism!,’ they cry. ‘Unfair subsidies!’ ‘It’s the government deficit and huge debt that matters!’ Such hyperbole and rhetoric falls flat on its can when you consider that the same “public” representatives refuse to vote similarly and eliminate subsidies many times the size and scope of the wind and renewable energy PTC.

Source: CleanTechnica