AWEA chief executive Denise Bode in a letter to congressional leaders this week wrote that the wind industry believes such a glide path through 2018 would enable it to become cost competitive and “minimally viable.”

The PTC pays $22 per MWh, inflation-adjusted, for a project’s first decade in operation. Enacted in 1992, it expires at the end of this month. While the tax credit - the main driver of industry growth - does have bipartisan support, it faces determined opposition from fossil fuel interests, fiscal Republican conservatives and critics who say that wind energy will never be cost competitive without subsidies.

AWEA’s