Sen. Chuck Grassley is the author of the original production tax credit for electricity from wind and has successfully worked to renew the tax credit ever since. Late last year, he secured a long-term, five-year extension and phase-out of the tax credit, intended to give the industry certainty for investments and job creation. Grassley notes that the wind energy industry is the only energy industry that has proposed a phase-out of its tax benefit, unlike many longstanding industries like oil and gas that have permanent tax benefits. Today, the American Wind Energy Association announced that American wind power supported a record 88,000 jobs at the beginning of this year, an increase of 20 percent in one year. Grassley made the following comment.
“In Iowa, a state that just became the first in the nation to generate more than 30 percent of its power from wind energy, we’ve seen the economic success story behind renewables up close and personal. There are more than 6,000 good wind jobs in Iowa. In addition to the direct jobs, wind energy is a selling point for tech companies that located to Iowa in part because they wanted to take advantage of wind energy. The latest job statistics show that wind energy is far from being only an Iowa phenomenon. Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and many other states show the gains of taking advantage of this clean energy opportunity.”
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