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November 25, 2014 12:29 PM UTC

GOP Majority's Priority One: Killing Colorado Jobs!

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Sen.-elect Cory Gardner.
Sen.-elect Cory Gardner.

As the Pueblo Chieftain's Peter Roper reports, a story with great significance to Colorado's economy:

The federal wind power tax credit, which Vestas and other windturbine producers rely on to support sales, is back in the cross hairs of conservative energy groups that want it eliminated…

The wind credit was one of the high-profile issues President Barack Obama campaigned for in 2012, the last time it was set to expire, and bipartisan supporters in windpower states extended the tax credit through 2013 after that election.

That extension allowed Vestas and other windpower companies to enter multiyear production contracts that are still fueling production at their factories, including the Vestas plant south of Pueblo.

The Hill reports that national conservative organizing group Americans for Prosperity, which has a large budget in Colorado, is leading the charge against the renewal of the wind production tax credit:

The conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is publishing advertisements pushing individual Republicans to oppose tax credits for wind energy.

The ads launched Monday in the hometown newspapers of 15 GOP representatives in eight states who have not given clear positions on the wind energy production tax credit since it expired at the end of last year…

“It’s important that these members go on the record to let their constituents know that even during the little-watched lame-duck session of Congress, they’re committed to opposing needless corporate handouts at taxpayer expense,” Brent Gardner, AFP’s top federal lobbyist, said in a statement Monday.

Americans for Prosperity played a significant role in get-out-the-vote operations for Republicans this year, and funded a lavish ad campaign in support for Sen.-elect Cory Gardner. With that said, at least on the issue of renewing the wind production tax credit, Gardner is not quite giving this Koch brothers-funded organization their money's worth:

A spokesman said Gardner noted the congressman backed the 2012 extension and still supports extending it again — but ramped down over time.

At least not yet! This isn't the first time that Gardner has had to thread the needle between supporting Colorado's renewable energy industry, which he is obliged to do as any kind of responsible representative of the state, and conservative dogmatic opposition to any kind of "government subsidy" of this or that particular energy source. Groups like Americans for Prosperity say they're for eliminating all tax credits and so-called subsidies of energy production and "letting the free market decide." It's a convenient position to take as long as actually stripping the traditional energy industry of its many tax credits and subsidies remains politically impossible, which it of course is. In the meantime, AFP can make their hypocritical case against wind power tax credits without appearing so colossally hypocritical.

All of which works fine in states that do not have thousands of jobs tied to the wind power industry. Here in Colorado, these tax credits have a direct, tangible value in high-paying manufacturing jobs–the kinds of jobs that support many more jobs. Jobs we can't afford to lose.

That is why Gardner wants to "ramp down" these tax credits to keep his benefactors happy–just not right now, for the sake of pesky constituents back home who depend on them. That might make mortgages and college educations harder to plan for, but now that he's Colorado's junior U.S. Senator, Gardner can straddle this issue without conseqeunce for at least a few years.

And that appears to be what the voters want, folks.

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13 thoughts on “GOP Majority’s Priority One: Killing Colorado Jobs!”

    1. So you'll be urging your party to do everything they can to end special breaks and subsidies to big oil and gas that pick them as winners? Glad to hear it.  

      2. Perhaps we could start with the $21+ billion the fossil fuel sector enjoys annually (as they have for decades)  The Price of Oil  Once the Republicans take the axe to those handouts, perhaps they could then address the societal health costs of petroleum aromatics  (Benzene, Toluene and Xylene) in our liquid fuel supply, estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.  These three components, which make up approximately 25% by volume of our national gasoline supply, could be displaced by advanced biofuels.   Which, of course, is the problem: we have a solution, it just doesn't involve drill bits and fracking fluid to find it.

        1. The White House, under intense pressure from the petroleum industry, is considering rolling back the renewable fuel standards put in place under Bush.  This is an absolute 'eye roll'; the alternative (displacing aromatics with biofuels) gives us cheaper fuel and better health.  Unfortunately neither of those scenarios matter to Exxon & Co.  As Blue Cat often opines, we shouldn't be shocked by any of this – and conservatives are incapable of mathematical equations that lead to an optimum outcome for society.

        2. You could add to that, Moderatus, the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits given only to O&G by the State of Colorado. It is an ad valorem tax credit that has GIVEN well over a billion dollars to O&G in the past 6 yrs.

          We need to get handouts out of the economy and stop picking winners and losers.

          please elaborate on this comment and send us a copy of the letter you are going to send to Senator Gardner telling him to stop the O&G subsidies at the federal level…and of course you will send a copy to Hick about that ad valorem thing…right?

        1. I think he is actually a GOTP rock star. Knocked off Udall. Successfully blurred his record and won a race I didn't think he had a chance for until October

  2. Gardner did brag of his support for alternative energy in the lege.  Yes, it happened that the bill in question wasn't very effective, but I think we can hold him to the concept, as well as his campaign pledges.   Alaternative energy means jobws in Colorado and if there is one thing my eastern Colorado has in abundance, it's wind.   Farmers can put up those windmills and still farm beneath them — so it's money in the bank for farmers and a cleaner environment for us all.   And jobs.  And let the Koch brothers go bleep themselves. 

    1. Gardner is a big supporter of alternative energy sources– he believes that we should explore all possible alternatives for wringing out every bit of the oil, gas, and coal the planet holds.

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