Senate committee renews tax break for wind industry

New York Times: Last week the Senate Finance Committee approved a $200 billion package of tax breaks, which includes a one-year continuation of a $3.3 billion credit for wind power. The subsidy, which applies to any wind projects begun before 2014, allows wind farms to choose either a continuing credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced or a single payment equivalent to 30% of the cost of production. Analysts in the wind-power industry expected that without the credit, the level of installation would drop from 10–12 gigawatts per year to just 1–4 gigawatts per year. Although more than 81% of wind turbines in the US are in Republican legislative districts, several Republican members of the committee and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney opposed the tax credit.

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