Introduction of the Rural Wind Energy Modernization and Extension Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, today I introduced the Rural Wind Energy Modernization and Extension Act of 2021. This commonsense proposal builds on the success of the small wind investment tax credit by assisting farmers, ranchers, and small businesses in offsetting the up-front costs of developing and owning distributed wind turbines.

Small wind turbines are commonly installed on residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and community sites and can range in size from a few-hundred-watt turbine at a remote cabin to a 5- kilowatt turbine at a home to a multi-megawatt turbine at a manufacturing facility. These systems allow farmers, ranchers, and other consumers to cut their energy bills and, at times, sell power back into the grid.

While this technology has grown in the past decade, federal policy to promote deployment of distributed wind has failed to keep up. Current law has constrained nameplate capacity in distributed wind projects and years of short-term extensions have created a significant amount of uncertainty in the distributed wind market. The Rural Wind Energy Modernization and Extension Act would increase the existing 100- kilowatt limitation to 10 megawatts and provide long-term certainty for distributed wind projects for decades to come.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to include this legislation in an infrastructure investment package.

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