Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

ENERGY TAX REFORM PAPER MAY COME SOON: The Senate Finance Committee will release a new tax reform policy draft before the end of next week, the committee’s chairman told POLITICO yesterday. The topic and even the number of drafts are in flux, but a single paper on energy tax policy is a considered the leading candidate, multiple sources said. ENR Chairman Ron Wyden would not comment on the forthcoming paper but said he wants all the players in the energy sector to have more “parity” in the tax code. “You’ve got to make it possible for all of the different energy sources to get out of the gate, and if you have a set of energy sources that are permanently subsidized at a very high level … how are you going to move to a competitive landscape?” he said. Lauren French and Kelsey Snell have more: http://politico.pro/1c006Qd

WYDEN: IF TAX REFORM DRAGS OUT, EXTENDERS MAY BE NEEDED: Wyden yesterday hinted he may push Congress to consider some sort of tax extenders package if broader tax reform efforts drag out too long. “If you didn’t have tax reform and you didn’t have extenders, you’d do crushing damage to solar, wind and renewables,” Wyden told ME in the Capitol. While Wyden, who also sits on the Senate Finance Committee, wouldn’t give any timeline for considering a revival of the renewable energy production tax credit and other provisions scheduled to expire at the end of this year, his willingness not to let the credits expire for too long could be good news for wind and other industries. “Clearly the decision by the House to in effect hold back on tax reform has given new urgency to the energy extenders,” Wyden noted.

 Speak of the devil: The BlueGreen Alliance is pressing lawmakers to extend a bevy of tax credits — including the PTC, the Investment Tax Credit, an offshore wind credit, the 48C clean energy manufacturing credit and credits for hybrid vehicles — in addition to extending Master Limited Partnerships to renewable energy projects