Responding to The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial on Wind Energy and Tax Reform

  • Gregory Wetstone

The Wall Street Journal published a misguided editorial over the weekend that supported the House tax bill’s damaging provisions to retroactively revise wind incentives. I wanted to share ACORE’s response in my letter to the editor, which was published in print on Nov. 15 as the lead response to their editorial (full text below).

 Wind, Solar Are Shedding Subsidies. Oil?

Renewable energy is one of the nation’s most important economic drivers. It deserves a fair shake from House legislators and editorial writers.

Regarding your editorial “Big Wind and Tax Reform” (Nov. 11): Wind and solar power, unlike virtually every other energy sector, agreed to a phase-out schedule for their own tax incentives in a bipartisan 2015 compromise. Rather than reward such fiscal leadership, the House proposal targets the sector with punitive provisions that retroactively change the criteria wind and solar projects must meet to qualify for tax credits last year. These provisions, the only retroactive measures in the 429-page bill, are so destructive that their introduction sent an immediate shiver through the marketplace, placing tens of billions of dollars in investment and thousands of wind-energy jobs at risk. Retroactive changes to rules that investors relied on in financial decisions are inherently unfair and have no place in tax reform.

You also ignore the fundamental hypocrisy of the energy provisions in the House bill, which target the dwindling temporary incentives for renewable energy instead of re-examining the array of older, permanent incentives for fossil fuels, some of which have been on the books for more than a century. Also spared, and in fact enriched, are incentives for nuclear energy that go back more than 50 years.

With nearly $100 billion in investment over the past two years, and a strong record of job creation, especially in rural areas where investment and jobs may otherwise be hard to come by, renewable energy is one of the nation’s most important economic drivers. It deserves a fair shake from House legislators and editorial writers.”