Letter to the Hon. Kevin Brady, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Hon. Richard Neal, Ranking Member, the Hon. Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the Hon. Ron Wyden, Ranking Member - Keep Wind Energy Production Tax Credit

Letter

Dear Chairman Brady, Ranking Member Neal, Chairman Hatch, and Ranking Member Wyden:

We appreciate the hard work of your respective committees to advance tax policies benefiting our hardworking constituents, communities, and national economy. As we continue to move through regular order and build on the strong foundation to help the middle class included in H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we want to share our strong support for maintaining the terms of the wind energy production tax credit (PTC) as it is in current law.

As you know, in 2015, Congress passed the bipartisan PATH Act which included an extension and four-year sunset of the wind energy PTC by phasing out the credit by 20 percent every year until 2019. This four-year transition has enabled the wind industry to make important decisions and investments which is providing certainty for an industry important to all of our constituents; however, we have serious concerns the changes included in H.R. 1 would cause instability.

We all agree changes to lessen the burdens of our current tax code are needed. We also join you in your belief the tax code must provide certainty for businesses to make decisions important to growing our economy and creating jobs. By changing the terms of the phase-out of the wind energy PTC agreed to by Congress two years ago, we are unnecessarily injecting uncertainty for consumers, manufacturers, and businesses and their employees.

Again, we applaud the hard work you do to advance policies important to alleviating the tax burdens facing our constituents. It is in this spirit we urge you to revert to current law regarding how wind energy projects may qualify for the PTC, or the Investment Tax Credit which is used for offshore wind projects, and remove provisions in the bill that negatively impact our constituents who benefit from wind energy. Thank you in advance for your consideration, and know we stand ready to work with you as Congress moves forward.