Although EPA administrator Scott Pruitt favors elimination of tax credits for wind and solar power, he isn’t calling the shots for the administration, said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the No. 2 state in wind-generated electricity. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “will be in the room when these agreements are made,” said Grassley, a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee, and Mnuchin backs an ongoing phase-down of wind and solar tax credits.”
“There’s already a transition period,” Grassley told reporters, brushing aside Pruitt’s remarks to the Kentucky Farm Bureau. According to The Hill newspaper, Pruitt said: “I’d do away with these incentives that we give to wind and solar. I’d let them stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sources…” The EPA chief acknowledged that the future of the credits was a congressional decision, not his.
During a weekly teleconference, Grassley cited Mnuchin’s testimony in a Senate hearing earlier this year, when he agreed with Grassley about the phase-down schedule for wind and solar credits. “We do need to have phaseout rules when we change things. I support the phaseout of that as you suggested,” said Mnuchin.
A phase down of the production tax credit for wind energy, now 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour generated, begins this year, with the credit to expire in 2020. The solar investment tax credit, now 30 percent, is scheduled to begin a phasedown in 2019. It would expire for residential projects in 2021 and remain at 10 percent for commercial projects.