AEA praises defeat of Stabenow, Menendez-Burr Amendments

For Immediate Release
March 13, 2012

WASHINGTON D.C. — The United States Senate defeated on a bipartisan 49-49 vote an amendment to the transportation bill on Tuesday that would have reinstated the production tax credit (PTC), a scheme to provide billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded handouts to providers of unreliable and intermittent wind energy. Similarly, the Senate defeated the Menendez-Burr Amendment to create subsidies for natural gas vehicles.

The American Energy Alliance was joined by numerous free market organizations and other concerned government watchdog groups to oppose the amendments offered by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Sen Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

“The defeat of the Stabenow Amendment and the Menendez-Burr Amendment is a victory for U.S. taxpayers and free markets that are hurt by government intervention in the energy sector. For more than 100 years, wind has been used to generate electricity, and it has yet to provide reliable, affordable energy for American consumers,” noted President Thomas J. Pyle after the vote.

“The Obama administration has been working overtime to create a market for wind and solar energy, using taxpayer money to bankroll now-defunct renewable companies like Solyndra to the tune of $535 million and more. As for subsidies to natural gas vehicles, the market is already responding to historic price declines due to record production on private and state lands. There is no need for the federal government to tinker with the market, which only invites more wasteful spending and greater fraud.

“Today’s votes send a clear signal that the American public has tired of the Administration’s interventionist schemes, which have already cost hundreds of billions of dollars and done nothing to reduce the cost of skyrocketing electricity and gasoline prices.”

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