United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague Senator Hoeven in offering this amendment and urging our colleagues to support the amendment to strip the wind protection tax credit from this massive bill.

I feel like I am living in an episode of the ``Twilight Zone,'' and I wish I could say that I am surprised. But I am not, because here we go again. Despite numerous requests and appeals and deals with the leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee to not jam this body with a 13th extension of the wind protection tax credit, here we are with another one in front of us.

Since the credit's inception in 1992--and for a lot of those years I was a utility regulator--it has always been promised that it would be temporary and would expire. Last year, we got jammed at the last minute with another extension, and, rightfully, the people back home are really, really upset with us. And it didn't sit very well with me either.

That is why, in April of this year, I led a letter to Leader McConnell with colleagues from West Virginia, Wyoming, and Georgia saying it was time to finally level the playing field and get rid of this market-distorting atrocity.

In July, I led another letter to Chairman Grassley with even more colleagues--from West Virginia, Wyoming, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania--with the same message: Let this credit expire.

Yet here we are again. The requests have fallen on deaf ears, and we have simply been given another pill to swallow with the extension today.

Some in this town have pointed to an extension in carbon sequestration credits like 45Q and 48A, as if they were an equal trade. They are not. Despite years of pleading, the Treasury Department--yes, this Treasury Department--still has not finalized regulations. So an extension of 45Q is moot if there is no way to actually monetize the credit.

Of equal importance, financial investors have said if renewable credits are extended, they will absorb whatever tax appetite exists because they are predictable, and those deals have been done many times.

Just to reiterate, they can't even utilize 45Q because Treasury hasn't finished the regulations 3 years after Congress expanded the credit.

More to the point, while there are some great proposed carbon sequestration projects planned in North Dakota, their benefit is targeted, while in contrast, hundreds of miners and the local communities they have built are being hurt by the extension of the production tax credit. I strongly support carbon sequester projects, but to assume that the potential benefits of 45Q or 48A are equal to the unilateral harm of the wind credit is disingenuous at best.

I have heard from utilities who actually use the wind PTC, but they said they don't need it because the market is so awash with wind credits, they can't even monetize them. It is completely upside down. In fact, the PTC credits are actually taking money away from other clean energy projects like nuclear clean coal, taking emissions-free energy right off the grid.

Just a few days ago, POLITICO said this: The simplest option for tax extenders would be to let all 33 that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year to be renewed.

I have a simpler plan. Let them all expire. K Street wouldn't like it, but it would be one less section in this giant package.

One final point, in all of my time in Congress--and that has been 8 years now--the wind production tax credit has never been extended through regular order or an open discussion or even hearings. Despite our objections or promises from the wind industry that it should expire, in the 11th hour with the government shutdown looming, it gets dropped into the Members' laps. That alone should be a red flag that the only time it has enough chance to pass is when it rides the coattails of our national defense and the government operations. It is shameful.

I support the amendment from Senator Hoeven, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well. Let the wind PTC expire

I yield my time.

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