ATLANTA (AP) — A stalled effort to renew federal tax
credits for the wind power industry is making it hard to keep employees
on the payroll and plan for expansion, a group of executives said
Tuesday, but two high-profile Washington figures advised them not to
expect help until after the November election.
The Production Tax
Credit, the primary cost-saving policy for the industry, expires at the
end of the year and the executives said their companies are already
feeling the effects.
"The issue is, the longer you wait, the more
critical (the tax credit) becomes," said Jan Blittersdorf president of
Vermont-based NRG Systems, a 25-year-old company that manufactures goods
for the industry. "This is really serious. This is the first time in 30
years we’ve had to do layoffs and once you start to dismantle this
system it’s hard to put it back together."
Blittersdorf echoed the
fears of several panelists at the WINDPOWER 2012 Conference &
Exhibition about job loss, not just within their own companies, but in
the entire sector. They said suppliers would also be strapped for cash
when the demand suddenly drops.
Tom Carnahan of Wind Rose Partners said the industry has experienced fluctuations
before, but this is different.
"There
is more at stake this time; every month matters, is critical," Carnahan
said.
"Developers have already started layoffs and every quarter of
this year we are going to lose jobs. It will be a tragedy not to find a
way to get this tax (credit) extended…"
Executives say extending
the tax credit would not only benefit suppliers and manufacturers, but
also the estimated 75,000 people employed by the industry.
The
problem does not appear to be a lack of political support, former
presidential aides Karl Rove and Robert Gibbs told several thousand
people gathered in Atlanta for the annual conference.
"The policy
is airtight," Gibbs said. "We understand the jobs it produces, we
understand the impact it has on our energy portfolio, and quite frankly
there’s no reason we shouldn’t do it."
Gibbs, who served as press
secretary for President Barack Obama, said Washington power players
recognize the economic impact of the industry on the country. However, a
tough political climate between now and the November presidential
election will make a quick resolution unlikely, he said.
"This election is about jobs and your industry is about jobs," Gibbs said.
"There has never been a better match."
And
though the tax credit is widely supported, that’s not going to be
enough to speed Congress up, said Rove, who was an advisor to former
president George W. Bush.
"My hope is that after the election
people say, ‘Look, let’s start making some priorities and find some
things that we can agree on, and maybe one of them is the Production Tax
Credit,’" said Rove. "It is a market mechanism, you don’t get paid
unless you produce the power, and we’re not picking winners and losers,
we’re simply saying for some period of time we will provide this
incentive."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.