Heidi Alexander: “I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership over the years and for pointing out the flaws in this proposal. It…”

“I thank the Senator from Arizona for his leadership over the years and for pointing out the flaws in this proposal. It wastes money, it undercuts reliable electricity--like coal and nuclear electricity--and, in my view, it destroys rather than saving the environment. But let's say exactly what we are talking about. This was a tax credit that was first passed in 1992, as the Senator from Arizona said, to help an infant industry. It has been renewed eight times. If you are a wind developer, it pays you 2.3 cents for every kilowatt hour of wind that you produce--which in some markets is about the cost of the wholesale value of each kilowatt hour of electricity. In fact, the subsidy is so great, sometimes in some markets, wind producers can actually give away their electricity and still make a profit. At other times--in the middle of the night in Chicago--they can actually pay utilities to take their wind power and still make a profit. That is what the wind production tax credit is. As the Senator says, this is a mature industry. I support jump- starting certain types of energy for a limited period of time. But Steven Chu, President Obama's Nobel Prize-winning U.S. Energy Secretary, in 2011 in response to my question--Is it a mature technology?--said: Yes, it is a mature technology. I would ask the Senator from Arizona, what is the justification for spending over the next 2 years $13 billion of taxpayer money?…”