WASHINGTON D.C. — As lobbyists, big labor unions and advocacy groups ramp up their efforts to push for another extension of the wind production tax credit, including a briefing today on Capitol Hill hosted by the Sierra Club, the BlueGreen Alliance, Oceana, and the United Steel Workers, Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, issued the following statement:
“The last thing Capitol Hill needs is another briefing that doesn’t give all the facts about Big Wind’s failure to grow up after two decades of taxpayer-funded child support. Today offers another example of how Big Labor and Big Wind are working together to protect billion dollar handouts for special interests. If our nation has any hope of averting a fiscal cliff, Washington must stop awarding rent-seekers with huge subsidies we cannot afford.
“Policymakers deserve all the facts about Big Wind’s twenty years of child support. A one year extension of the PTC will cost an additional $12 billion to U.S. taxpayers, and even then it won’t stop a contraction in the industry. State mandates that create a government-induced market for wind energy have already tipped the scale enough. Taxpayers funded wind energy to the tune of $5 billion in 2010, and subsidies for wind increased ten-fold between 2007 and 2010. On a per megawatt basis, Big Wind has been receiving more than $56.00 from taxpayers, more ten times than the total amount shared between coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, and yet it still only provides approximately 3 percent of our total electricity generation.
“But Big Wind’s powerful allies aren’t interested in the facts. Nor are they concerned about our nation’s dire fiscal condition. Like all rent-seekers, they’re just interested in getting more free money from Washington.”
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