Emerging Senate fiscal-cliff plan throws lifeline to wind projects

The emerging Senate plan to prevent tax hikes for most people provides an extension of wind energy tax credits that the industry calls vital to financing new projects, according to a GOP aide familiar with the talks.

Wind energy advocates have lobbied hard to prevent the production tax credit from expiring Dec. 31. The number of new wind projects has dropped sharply when the credit has been allowed to lapse in the past, which last occurred in 2004.

Including the credit is a defeat for conservative groups that urged lawmakers to let it lapse and cast the incentive as undue federal intervention in energy markets.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday afternoon that he and Vice President Biden have agreed on the tax portion of a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff."

President Obama, in remarks Monday, said the emerging agreement would extend “clean energy” credits but did not provide specifics.

But a Senate GOP aide said the package would include a package of extensions of expiring tax provisions that the Senate Finance Committee approved over the summer.

That committee plan provided a one-year extension of the wind energy tax credits. It also tweaked the way the credit is made available, requiring only that projects have begun construction within the next year.

Wind industry officials have said that the Finance Committee language will expand the number of projects that can take advantage of the one-year window.

That plan also extends a series of other soon-to-lapse or already expired credits, such as incentives for efficient homes, biofuels and other measures.

Wind energy advocates off Capitol Hill said Monday that the plan also appears to include an extension of the wind credit, but they did not have details of the duration or structure.

Click here and here for more of The Hill's coverage of the ongoing talks to avoid the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts.

— Zack Colman contributed to this report.