Commentary: Provisions in tax bill threaten 60,000 U.S. wind jobs

When I was growing up in Texas, we were taught a promise is something you keep, and people are only as good as their word.

As Congress moves towards final passage of tax-reform legislation, more than 100,000 Americans in the wind industry are urging senators and House members to keep their word and honor Congress’ commitment to wind workers and investors in the bipartisan 2015 Path Act. While older energies seek new subsidies, the wind industry took a bold step, agreeing to phase-out wind’s production tax credit (PTC) by 2020, on the promise of predictable terms for transition. In turn, investors committed $50 billion to projects supporting 60,000 jobs across rural America and all 50 states.

Regrettably, these jobs and investments were jeopardized when the U.S. House turned it’s back on U.S. workers and passed a tax bill with provisions breaking Congress’ 2015 promise and retroactively changing the rules on investors.

Tax reform, supporters maintain, has two foremost goals: Make America a better place to do business, and help middle-class Americans.

The House’s rule-change missed that mark and should be dropped.

The Senate bill honors the PTC ramp-down schedule, which is appreciated. Last-minute provisions, however, inadvertently but seriously undercut clean-energy tax credits, investment and jobs. They should be amended.

For businesses, tax rates aren’t the only drivers of investment and growth. Certainty matters. Investors can’t predict everything, but they can measure and manage risk with clear rules everyone plays by.

Under 2015 ramp-down terms, investors and wind developers committed billions to infrastructure projects, following federal guidelines for tax-credit qualified projects. Factory orders were placed, equipment built and construction contracts signed. No surprise, business certainty drove investment and growth. Wind jobs grew nine-times faster than the U.S. economy in 2016.

Fast forward to today. In just a few sentences, the tax bills effectively told rural Americans: “Sorry, we didn’t mean it. Terms are changed.” Investor certainty and over a third of PTC value was stripped, after people were hired and deals done by 2015 rules. It’s like changing the rules at halftime and saying 1st-half scores don’t count. Except it isn’t a game.

Consequences are real – not just for business bottom lines. These tax-bill provisions threaten middle-class families.

My company makes wind turbines. We invest $1 billion+ a year on U.S. supply-chain components. We employ 5,400 workers at factories in Colorado and across America.

Utah has 200+ wind turbines generating almost 400 megawatts, hundreds of jobs and a wind-related manufacturing facility. America’s wind industry has 500 factories, 1,000+ utility-scale projects and 52,000 turbines.

For middle-class Americans, wind energy delivers:

Today, wind powers 102,500 jobs in 50 states. Every year, the industry supports 30 jobs for each new wind turbine.

By 2020, 250,000 wind-related U.S. jobs are projected, including those near wind farms and factories, and 600,000 U.S. jobs by 2050.

By 2050, low-cost wind will save consumers $150 billion.

Last year, wind-farm leases paid ranchers and family farms $245 million.

Wind has wide bipartisan support. Indeed, Republican voters get 80 percent of wind’s benefits – which the tax-bill provisions threaten.

This isn’t about loving or hating wind energy. It’s about fairness, business certainty, keeping a promise and growing jobs. Americans understand a deal is a deal. An industry that went first on tax reform should be allowed to finish what it started. That’s the kind of tax policy that makes America a better place to do business.

Wind is homegrown, true American power.

Congress should stay true to its word with wind workers and investors, and true to the goals of successful tax reform – helping businesses and middle-class Americans, not handicapping them.

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Chris Brown is president of Vestas Americas and a board member and past chair of the American Wind Energy Association.