North American Windpower: House Kills Amendment Supporting Wind Energy PTC Extension

by NAW Staff on Monday 17 September 2012

While many members of the U.S. House of Representatives are doing everything in their power to prevent the further development of clean energy, others are still fighting hard to ensure wind and solar have a place in the country's future.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee pushed through the "No More Solyndras Act" - legislation that would terminate the U.S. Department of Energy's loan-guarantee program - some members of the House slammed their colleagues for what many consider to be a symbolic attack on clean energy.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., condemned the legislation, calling it “a sham that protects imperiled nuclear projects while revealing House Republicans’ true agenda to undercut innovative wind, solar and other clean energy projects.”

“Republicans say they want no more Solyndras, but what they really want is no more clean energy solutions,” Markey, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement. “They don’t want the newest clean energy technologies to compete with coal, nuclear, oil and other fossil fuels.”

Well into the debate on the No More Solyndras Act, which went up for a vote by the House on Friday, Markey fired off an amendment that would make the prohibition of new loan guarantees contingent on the extension of the wind energy production tax credit (PTC).

Markey’s PTC amendment was defeated, mostly along party lines, by a vote of 175-234. The No More Solyndras Act passed, however, by a vote of 245-161. The legislation now moves to the Senate for consideration.

A proposal to extend the wind energy PTC remains alive in an omnibus tax-extenders bill drafted and passed by the Senate Finance Committee this summer. The bill is expected to be considered by the full Senate this fall.

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