Majority Republicans in the House of Representatives on Thursday unveiled a bill to rewrite the federal tax code containing language that could threaten $50bn in planned wind energy investment by changing eligibility criteria and value of the production tax credit (PTC), the industry's main fiscal incentive.

The bill retains the scheduled phase-out of the PTC on an 80%-60%-40% schedule in 2017-19 before expiration in 2020, as agreed to in 2015 bipartisan omnibus spending legislation signed into law by former President Barack Obama.