[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 32 (Thursday, February 27, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2974-S2975]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Breaux, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Leahy, 
        Mr. Harkin, and Mr. Johnson):
  S. 488. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide 
a 5-year extension of the credit for electricity produced from wind; to 
the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today, I am joined by Senators Breaux, 
Durbin, Leahy, Harkin and Johnson in introducing legislation to extend 
the current federal wind energy production tax credit, PTC, for an 
additional five years. This tax credit is scheduled to expire at the 
end of the year. A long-term extension of the credit will give wind 
energy developers the certainty they need to grow this important 
domestic industry with its seemingly limitless energy potential.
  One of the most promising alternative energy sources on this 
country's horizon comes from one of nature's most abundant assets: the 
wind. Over 2,000 megawatts of new wind energy capacity has been added 
to the nation's electricity grid in just the last 2 years. This new 
wind generation has pumped over $2 billion into the struggling economy.
  Congress has helped promote wind energy by making significant 
financial investments in Federal research and private-sector 
development over the last decade. Among other things, Congress has 
provided a Federal income tax credit for facilities that produce 
electricity from wind, which allows them to bring state-of-the-art wind 
turbines to the marketplace at a competitive rate.
  More and more utilities that have produced electricity from 
traditional fossil fuels are now looking to wind energy and other 
alternative energy sources to meet a larger share of this country's 
future energy demands. Soaring oil and natural gas prices also remind 
us of the importance of reducing our reliance on foreign energy sources 
and keeping a diverse energy supply here at home.
  However, despite broad bipartisan congressional support for the wind 
energy production tax credit, its fate remains cloudy. As I mentioned, 
the wind energy tax credit is scheduled to expire at the end of the 
year. Congress will surely extend the credit. But we can't wait until 
the last day of the session--or even later--to do so.
  Unfortunately, this is not merely polemics. Congress has twice 
allowed the PTC to expire. First, Congress allowed it to expire in July 
1999 and failed to reinstate it until December 1999. As a result, wind 
energy investments plummeted from 661 megawatts installed in 1999 to 
only 53 megawatts in 2000. Inexplicably, the Congress let the PTC 
expire a second time--at the end of 2001--and did not reinstate the 
credit until March of the following year. This failure contributed to 
another major drop in wind investments dropping from 1696 megawatts 
installed in 2001 to just 410 megawatts in 2002.
  Today, wind energy industry officials tell me that if we do not 
extend the production tax credit by mid-year, thousands of jobs and 
billions of dollars in economic activity would be lost. And this 
shouldn't come as a surprise to my Senate colleagues. For many years, 
wind energy developers have told us that one of the major stumbling 
blocks to greater deployment of new wind technologies is the continued 
uncertainty surrounding the availability of the wind energy production 
tax credit. Even so, we still provided for just another short-term 
extension of the tax credit last March. A few short months from now, 
financial lenders will stop providing needed capital to new wind 
initiatives. As a result, projects already underway will quickly come 
to a halt, while new projects will be shelved. Many developers will 
simply be unable to build and purchase equipment and secure the 
financing that is needed to bring wind turbine generators on-line by 
year's end.
  When the tax credit last expired, I heard from manufacturers in my 
state and across the nation about impending layoffs, because of the 
lack of certainty at that time. A tower developer in my state of North 
Dakota has again laid off 17 workers, because of the uncertainty this 
industry still faces, due to the soon-to-expire tax credit. We can help 
eliminate this uncertainty by extending the production tax credit for a 
longer term.
  If we fail to act promptly to extend the tax credit this time around, 
North Dakota's wind energy industry would suffer another serious 
economic blow. I am told that DMI Industries, a major producer of wind 
turbine towers in North Dakota, would experience a 40-percent drop in 
business activity, resulting in some $15 million in lost revenue. The 
company's plan to expand its operation by 75 employees in 2004 would 
also be derailed. Delay in extending the production tax credit would 
mean that 100-125 new jobs would not be created in the coming year by 
LM Glasfiber, which is a major blade manufacturer in Grand Forks.
  There is a great deal of discussion in Washington, D.C. about passing 
a stimulus package to provide a needed boost to our ailing economy. 
This very effort would be needlessly undermined if we fail to extend 
the wind energy production tax credit in a timely manner and make it 
available over the long term.
  In North Dakota, we put up several wind turbines last year and 
launched an 80-megawatt project for North Dakota and South Dakota. At a 
time when this industry is just beginning to ramp up in the Great 
Plains, it would be foolish to thwart these efforts by failing to 
extend this wind energy production tax credit for sufficient time to 
get substantial new projects off the design boards and up and running.
  Again, the bill I'm introducing today would extend the current 
production tax credit for qualifying wind facilities that are placed in 
service on or before December 31, 2008. The wind energy production tax 
credit has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in both the Senate and the 
House of Representatives in previous years, so we should be able to 
pass this legislation quickly this year.
  I urge my Senate colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and work 
with me to get it enacted into law as soon as

[[Page S2975]]

possible. If we fail to act promptly, many new wind energy initiatives 
will come to a halt at a time when this country can least afford it.
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