Jobs Blow Away as Congress Fails to Act on Wind Energy

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/jobs-blow-away-as-congress-fails-to-act-on-wind-energy.html

Leeco Steel LLC’s fortunes rose even during the Great Recession thanks to a single customer: the burgeoning U.S. wind-energy industry.

Leeco had 50 employees when it started selling 7 ton steel plates to wind-tower makers in 2004. It now has 125, and wind accounts for about 40 percent of the Lisle, Illinois-based company’s business.

“We’ve done extremely well,” John Purcell, Leeco’s vice president for wind energy, said in an interview. Leeco is a unit of O’Neal Industries, a metals-service company based in Birmingham, Alabama.

Now a different sort of economic crisis is looming over the industry. A tax credit fueling wind’s growth expires at the end of this year unless Congress votes to extend it. Wind-energy companies get 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour produced, shaving as much as one-third off the costs.