[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 218 (Monday, December 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7922-S7923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNITED STATES-MEXICO ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP ACT
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before the
Senate the message to accompany H.R. 133.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair lays before the Senate the following
message from the House:
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Resolved, that the House agree to the amendment of the
Senate to the bill (H.R. 133) entitled ``An Act to promote
economic partnership and cooperation between the United
States and Mexico,'' with an amendment to the Senate
amendment.
Motion to Concur
Mr. McCONNELL. I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate
amendment to H.R. 133.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is pending.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that there be 60 minutes of
debate, equally divided between the leaders or their designees; and
that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote
on the motion to concur without further motions or amendments in order
and that 60 affirmative votes be required to adopt the motion to
concur.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Unanimous Consent Request
Mr. HOEVEN. North Dakota is an energy powerhouse, and our late-night
producers work around the clock to ensure homes and businesses in the
Midwest have affordable and reliable access to power when it is needed
most. But the PTC, the wind production tax credit, is creating
artificially low prices in markets for power generation.
Qualified wind projects are receiving up to 2\1/2\ cents per kilowatt
hour from the taxpayer. These subsidies distort the market and are
forcing out the critical coal-fired baseload generation we need to keep
the lights on.
Since Congress established a wind production tax credit in 1992, wind
power has been able to transition from an emerging technology to a
multibillion-dollar industry that is clearly commercially viable. That
is why we worked on a bipartisan agreement in 2015 to phase down and
sunset the wind tax credit at the end of 2019.
We had an agreement to do the phaseout, and the wind industry agreed
to it. I worked with Senator Thune and AWEA, the American Wind Energy
Association, and others to do it. And they agreed. We had an agreement.
That is why we are opposed to extending the PTC and offer an amendment
to strike it.
We saw what happened in California over the summer, and we can't
afford to have blackouts and brownouts during the coldest of winter
weather months. We, instead, must strengthen grid resiliency and
reliability by keeping diverse sources of generation available at all
times, including when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining.
That means baseload.
Instead of extending the production tax credit, we should be working
on making technologies like carbon capture and sequestration
commercially viable.
The American Wind Energy Association states on its website that
``growth in the wind industry is expected to remain strong when the PTC
is fully phased out.'' Why, then, are we considering another extension
of this credit when the leading trade association expects to see strong
growth for the wind industry without the credit?
We need to bring back a level playing field for competition in our
electricity markets and reverse the trend of taxpayers continuing to
subsidize a mature, multibillion-dollar wind industry.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and ensure that the
wind production tax credit sunsets.
With that, I would like to ask for some words from my cosponsor on
the amendment, Senator Cramer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague Senator Hoeven
in offering this amendment and urging our colleagues to support the
amendment to strip the wind protection tax credit from this massive
bill.
I feel like I am living in an episode of the ``Twilight Zone,'' and I
wish I could say that I am surprised. But I am not, because here we go
again. Despite numerous requests and appeals and deals with the leader
and the chairman of the Finance Committee to not jam this body with a
13th extension of the wind protection tax credit, here we are with
another one in front of us.
Since the credit's inception in 1992--and for a lot of those years I
was a utility regulator--it has always been promised that it would be
temporary and would expire. Last year, we got jammed at the last minute
with another extension, and, rightfully, the people back home are
really, really upset with us. And it didn't sit very well with me
either.
That is why, in April of this year, I led a letter to Leader
McConnell with colleagues from West Virginia, Wyoming, and Georgia
saying it was time to finally level the playing field and get rid of
this market-distorting atrocity.
In July, I led another letter to Chairman Grassley with even more
colleagues--from West Virginia, Wyoming, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and
Pennsylvania--with the same message: Let this credit expire.
Yet here we are again. The requests have fallen on deaf ears, and we
have simply been given another pill to swallow with the extension
today.
Some in this town have pointed to an extension in carbon
sequestration credits like 45Q and 48A, as if they were an equal trade.
They are not. Despite years of pleading, the Treasury Department--yes,
this Treasury Department--still has not finalized regulations. So an
extension of 45Q is moot if there is no way to actually monetize the
credit.
Of equal importance, financial investors have said if renewable
credits are extended, they will absorb whatever tax appetite exists
because they are predictable, and those deals have been done many
times.
Just to reiterate, they can't even utilize 45Q because Treasury
hasn't finished the regulations 3 years after Congress expanded the
credit.
More to the point, while there are some great proposed carbon
sequestration projects planned in North Dakota, their benefit is
targeted, while in contrast, hundreds of miners and the local
communities they have built are being hurt by the extension of the
production tax credit. I strongly support carbon sequester projects,
but to assume that the potential benefits of 45Q or 48A are equal to
the unilateral harm of the wind credit is disingenuous at best.
I have heard from utilities who actually use the wind PTC, but they
said they don't need it because the market is so awash with wind
credits, they can't even monetize them. It is completely upside down.
In fact, the PTC credits are actually taking money away from other
clean energy projects like nuclear clean coal, taking emissions-free
energy right off the grid.
Just a few days ago, POLITICO said this: The simplest option for tax
extenders would be to let all 33 that are scheduled to expire at the
end of the year to be renewed.
I have a simpler plan. Let them all expire. K Street wouldn't like
it, but it would be one less section in this giant package.
One final point, in all of my time in Congress--and that has been 8
years
[[Page S7923]]
now--the wind production tax credit has never been extended through
regular order or an open discussion or even hearings. Despite our
objections or promises from the wind industry that it should expire, in
the 11th hour with the government shutdown looming, it gets dropped
into the Members' laps. That alone should be a red flag that the only
time it has enough chance to pass is when it rides the coattails of our
national defense and the government operations. It is shameful.
I support the amendment from Senator Hoeven, and I urge my colleagues
to support it as well. Let the wind PTC expire
I yield my time.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Cramer and
turn to my colleague Senator Lankford.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I will be brief. I did what many of us
did today. We spent the day digging through a 5,600-page bill, trying
to find out what is in it. We broke it up into hundreds of pages of
chunks and separated it among our staff and just started reading
through it as quickly as we could, trying to be able to pull out the
details.
We found a lot of things that we really like. We found a few
surprises as well. So help us, we found, right in the middle of the
document on tax policy, a zombie--the wind production tax credit.
Something that we had heard had died--in fact, something that we had
heard died 2 years ago; in fact, something that we had heard died 6
years ago when all of us agreed it should die. In fact, the plan was to
take it down a little bit each and every year until it finally got to
zero. The problem was, when it got to zero, some lobbyist helped
somebody get it back in last year, and it suddenly, after going to
zero, reappeared. And then, so help me, it reappeared again.
So this temporary credit that distorts the market, that literally
changes the prices in all of our energy--whether that be oil or gas or
coal or solar or hydroelectric or nuclear--gives a special perk to one,
and all of the rest of them get furious. But for whatever reason, this
simple credit can't seem to go away.
When we agree to something, we should probably stick to it, and we
agreed years ago to phase this out. But yet this zombie keeps
reappearing and walking the halls of the Senate.
Our simple challenge is this. Let's put this zombie in the daylight.
Let's have the real argument over it and determine: Is this distorting
the energy market for everybody else, including all of our renewables?
Is it something we need to keep?
I live in Oklahoma, and if you know our song, you know ``the wind
comes sweeping down the plains.'' We have been called the Saudi Arabia
of wind power. I promise, you can't drive very far in Oklahoma without
seeing a field of windmills. We have lots of wind power, and we think
it is a great energy source. But it is a mature energy source, and it
does not need the wind production tax credit. So let's sunset it.
With that, I yield
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague Senator
Lankford. Also, we would like to thank Senator Alexander, Senator
Barrasso, and others who support this legislation.
With that, I ask unanimous consent that our motion to concur with the
amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; and that the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, I will be brief. I want to
give the Senate a sense of where we are with respect to this issue. In
front of us right now is a bipartisan agreement to extend a variety of
provisions to promote clean energy and reduce carbon emissions.
When I talk to colleagues on both sides of the aisle, there is
enormous support for the effort to reduce carbon emissions. Now, I can
look around this Chamber and point out colleagues who have worked with
me on the renewable energy provisions that are part of this bipartisan
agreement, which includes not just the credit for wind but also solar
and other renewable energy. I would submit this is the best approach we
have today, which is to make sure that we don't miss out on critical
investments right now.
For the future, I have a plan to move to a technology-neutral system
that would avoid picking winners and losers, take this mess of a Tax
Code, with more than 40 separate energy provisions, throw it in the
trash, and say we are going to focus on one thing--reducing carbon
emissions. We aren't there today. What is here today is climate change.
That is why it is so important that we pass this bill and reject this
amendment.
With that, I want to thank my colleagues from North Dakota. I
remember enjoying going to North Dakota with the sponsor of this
amendment. I will tell you, if you are over 6 feet tall, make sure to
exercise before you go to North Dakota because you will be in the
smallest airline seat in the history of aviation.
John Hoeven is a very good and caring man. I am looking forward to
working with him on these issues in the future.
And with that, I would object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. I would ask my colleague from Oregon--and I did have him
in North Dakota. We had a great time, and I appreciate his coming out
to see the energy we produce in our great State.
I would ask the gentleman for his help on carbon capture
technologies. We put funding in place to advance those carbon capture
technologies, and I ask for his help and his colleagues' help in that
endeavor.
Mr. WYDEN. I would say to my colleague, I am always interested in
working with him in the future. After we pass this bill, with these
important provisions to meet our immediate needs, let's set as our
lodestar reducing carbon emissions.
When you and I served on the Energy Committee together, that was an
approach that brought together Republicans and Democrats.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. I thank my cosponsors on this amendment and our efforts
will continue.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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