Nevada needs Congress to kill the PTC

With Election Day behind us, Congress—including Carson City’s own Rep. Mark Amodei—must now turn its attention to the raft of issues that legislators have ignored over the past year. Chief among them: Whether to revive the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a massive, taxpayer-funded handout that in 2012 gouged Nevada taxpayers for $15 million.

That fact alone should be enough for Congress to kill the PTC. But there’s another reason that Nevadans should want it dead: It’s a central component for President Obama’s destructive climate agenda.

Here’s how it works. The PTC, which was first created by Congress in 1992, subsidizes renewable energy producers—especially wind companies—for the electricity they generate. This cost taxpayers some $1.6 billion in 2012, including Nevada’s $15 million share.

The foundation of the president’s climate plan is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) greenhouse gas emissions rule for existing power plants—the president’s attempt to shut down America’s coal industry. A recent analysis finds that residents in 43 states will face double-digit increases in electricity prices under the rule. For all that pain, the rule would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by just 1.5 percent by 2050.

One of the central “building blocks” of EPA’s power plant regulation is increased use of wind and solar for electricity generation. But wind and solar are uncompetitive without massive taxpayer subsidies—for wind, that takes the form of the PTC.

Thus, a vote for the PTC is a vote for the president’s climate agenda.

The wind industry’s top lobbyist put it best: “Wind energy is one of the biggest, fastest, cheapest ways states can comply with the forthcoming EPA rule.”

There’s just one problem with this “cheap” wind energy: It isn’t cheap. Wind power is more than 125 percent more expensive than natural gas-generated electricity and more than 90 percent more expensive than coal-generated electricity. The only way wind producers stay in business is with the taxpayer’s help—a la the PTC.Wind’s recent history bears this out. When the credit is active, new wind installations soar. When it temporarily expires, new installations plummet.

That was the case in 2013 when the PTC expired. New wind installations plunged from an all-time high of 13,000 MW in 2012 to a mere 1,100 MW in 2013—a 92 percent drop in a single year. Similar declines occurred following previous temporary expirations in 2000, 2002, and 2004, when new installations dropped by 92, 76, and 76 percent, respectively.

The lesson is clear: Without government handouts, wind energy doesn’t fly. It’s simply too expensive compared to the cheap traditional fuels that currently power Americans’ daily lives. The PTC seeks to hide this fact, but only by charging consumers once in their taxes and again in their utility bills.

Congress can end this farce by refusing to renew the PTC. President Obama needs wind energy to advance his climate agenda, and wind energy needs the subsidies that Nevadans have been paying for more than two decades.

Congress — including Rep. Amodei — should put their constituents’ interests above the president’s climate agenda. That starts with rejecting any attempt to revive the PTC.

Tom Pyle is the president of the American Energy Alliance.