OK, Americas #2 wind producer, sours on the industry (with help from the extraction welfare kings)
Oklahoma, America’s No. 2 wind producer, sours on the industry
patterns of thought
A massive state budget crisis, along with powerful oil and gas interests, has led the state to phase out key tax incentives for wind. (forget incentives, they want to TAX wind)
January 30, 2018 Garber, Okla.—First the wind came sweeping down the plain, then the dollars, and now the controversy. With ever more spiky wind turbines cropping up across its open lands, Oklahoma has just become the No. 2 state in the country for wind energy production, the American Wind Energy Association announced Tuesday. That has been a boon for local communities, but it has also come at a price for the state, which pays tens of millions of dollars a year in subsidies for wind companies. As the industry grows, so does the price tag for wind incentives.
Now a new project – Wind Catcher, which is slated to be one of the largest wind farms in America – is facing stiff resistance and could be scrapped altogether. The Wind Catcher case comes amid a pushback on wind incentives, galvanized by a state budget crisis and influential oil and gas interests. In the past year, Oklahoma has ended two key incentives that even wind proponents admitted were in some ways “too generous.”
“I’m hopeful that the current balance that we’ve struck between local taxation and making sure that we’re not penalizing a new technology – I’m hopeful that that balance stays in place,” says state Sen. AJ Griffin (R) of Guthrie, who says she encourages investment in wind “without giving away the farm.”
But some are pushing not only to remove all subsidies, but to levy a new tax on wind.
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https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2018/0130/Oklahoma-America-s-No.-2-wind-producer-sours-on-the-industry
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