The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday became the most recent major newspaper to endorse an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), calling the revival of the shuttered U.S. Steel plant in Bucks County the “best case” for renewing the vital incentive.

Added the editorial, “It’s at the old Fairless Works that the Spanish turbine manufacturer Gamesa has employed hundreds of people, and where predicted layoffs affecting 20 percent of the firm’s Pennsylvania workforce would hit hard.

“Gamesa has grown by leaps, building wind-power equipment and wind farms that generate 40 percent of the state’s wind power–all while relying on domestic suppliers for an increasingly large share of its components.”

The PTC, the Inquirer noted, provides an incentive to wind project developers based solely on the actual production from a wind farm that is already up and operating, so there is no risk to the government.

It concluded, “Of course, there are critics who say wind power will have to stand on its own some day. But with the nation’s reliance on wind power standing at only three percent–far below potential–that day has not arrived.”

The PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of electricity production from utility-scale wind turbines. It is set to expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress extends it first. A recent study by Navigant Consulting found that extending the Production Tax Credit will allow the industry to grow to 100,000 jobs in just four years, while an expiration would kill 37,000 jobs within a year.

A House bill seeking to extend the PTC has 110 cosponsors, including 25 Republicans, while a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by seven Senators, including three Republicans.  PTC extension efforts have received the endorsement of a broad coalition of more than 370 members, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Western Governors’ Association. A PTC extension also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Governors Association, and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes 23 Republican and Democratic Governors from across the U.S.  A PTC extension has been endorsed by a number of newspapers across the country, including the Des Moines Register, the Denver Post, the Daily Oklahoman, the Toledo Blade, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, The New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Further endorsements of the wind energy production tax credit.