Stop playing games with wind power

Gazette Editorial Board

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Earlier this month, we argued for keeping the federal wind energy production tax credit for several more years. This industry is important to Iowa, the nation's No. 2 wind power producer, because of the estimated 6,000 jobs it supports, as well as its role in helping our nation develop an inventory of viable renewable and alternative energy options.

We still think wind power needs more time to prove its potential, and the tax credit is a necessary tool, although it shouldn't live forever. But Congress keeps playing games with this tax break, and the uncertainty has helped feed a boom-bust cycle in this industry over the past decade.

The tax credit is 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced for the first 10 years a company is in production. It was created in 1992. But over the years, Congress has extended the credit in mostly one- or two-year intervals or let it expire.

It's due to expire again on Dec. 31, and guess what: Wind manufacturing companies are laying off employees these days as demand for their equipment drops in anticipation of the tax credit expiration, as well as more competition from the declining cost of natural gas because of improved drilling methods.

The impact hit locally Monday when Clipper Windpower, which has operated a turbine plant in Cedar Rapids since 2005, laid off 174 employees from its companywide workforce of 550, including an unspecified number here. Clipper didn't refer to the production tax credit in its statement, but the American Wind energy Association points the finger at the unstable, short-term federal policy environment that discourages investment for the long term. Older energy forms long have had stable support.

It's a good point. If Congress values wind energy development, it should not keep the industry guessing year to year.

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