Ryan Motel was furloughed this year from his job making turbine parts at a Gamesa plant in Ebensburg Pennsylvania when demand for the company’s product slipped. In all 73 workers from that plant and 165 Gamesa workers in Pennsylvania were sent home. While Motel said the company did not tell him directly that the slowdown was a result of congress not taking action on the renewable electricity production tax credit, he said “[Gamesa] beat around the bush, that’s what it was.”
Supporters of the 2.2-cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit, first passed in 1992, believe the uncertainty over the future of the credit has caused electric companies to stop building alternative energy facilities including wind farms.
“Businesses facing that kind of uncertainty have to make choices and you can’t make those choices right up to the deadline, you have to begin making those choices, unfortunately, before you get to that deadline,” said Khari Mosley, BlueGreen Alliance Regional Program Manager.
The BlueGreen Alliance is taking Motel and his message on a four-state tour that launched in Pittsburgh Tuesday and travels to Ohio, Michigan and Virginia.
Allegheny County Labor Council President Jack Shea said he is called every week to make a speech in support of one bill or another that will create jobs so there is no lack of ideas, but he said Motel is caught in a political war.
“This is one example of what’s happening in our county,” said Shea. “They are trying to destroy the middle class. Ryan had a middle class job that provided for his family and his employer had to lay him off because he’s not sure if this thing is going to be extended.”
Supporters said they know it will be difficult to get the measure called for a vote before the November election, but Mosley said they would work hard to get approval soon after the election.
Sierra Club organizer Randy Francisco places the blame for inaction on a list of Republican congressmen including Bill Shuster (PA 9). Shuster’s spokesperson Gretchen Gailey reacted by saying Shuster embraces an all-of-the-above energy policy and has voted for the tax credit in the past and he plans to do so again. However, the congressman would first like to see a plan put forward by the wind energy industry that includes a business model that would allow the industry to sustain itself without government subsidies.
