United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. North Dakota is an energy powerhouse, and our late-night producers work around the clock to ensure homes and businesses in the Midwest have affordable and reliable access to power when it is needed most. But the PTC, the wind production tax credit, is creating artificially low prices in markets for power generation.

Qualified wind projects are receiving up to 2\1/2\ cents per kilowatt hour from the taxpayer. These subsidies distort the market and are forcing out the critical coal-fired baseload generation we need to keep the lights on.

Since Congress established a wind production tax credit in 1992, wind power has been able to transition from an emerging technology to a multibillion-dollar industry that is clearly commercially viable. That is why we worked on a bipartisan agreement in 2015 to phase down and sunset the wind tax credit at the end of 2019.

We had an agreement to do the phaseout, and the wind industry agreed to it. I worked with Senator Thune and AWEA, the American Wind Energy Association, and others to do it. And they agreed. We had an agreement. That is why we are opposed to extending the PTC and offer an amendment to strike it.

We saw what happened in California over the summer, and we can't afford to have blackouts and brownouts during the coldest of winter weather months. We, instead, must strengthen grid resiliency and reliability by keeping diverse sources of generation available at all times, including when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. That means baseload.

Instead of extending the production tax credit, we should be working on making technologies like carbon capture and sequestration commercially viable.

The American Wind Energy Association states on its website that ``growth in the wind industry is expected to remain strong when the PTC is fully phased out.'' Why, then, are we considering another extension of this credit when the leading trade association expects to see strong growth for the wind industry without the credit?

We need to bring back a level playing field for competition in our electricity markets and reverse the trend of taxpayers continuing to subsidize a mature, multibillion-dollar wind industry.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and ensure that the wind production tax credit sunsets.

With that, I would like to ask for some words from my cosponsor on the amendment, Senator Cramer.

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Cramer and turn to my colleague Senator Lankford.

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague Senator Lankford. Also, we would like to thank Senator Alexander, Senator Barrasso, and others who support this legislation.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I would ask my colleague from Oregon--and I did have him in North Dakota. We had a great time, and I appreciate his coming out to see the energy we produce in our great State.

I would ask the gentleman for his help on carbon capture technologies. We put funding in place to advance those carbon capture technologies, and I ask for his help and his colleagues' help in that endeavor.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I thank my cosponsors on this amendment and our efforts will continue.

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