US House revises harmful wind provision

The US House walked back a provision in its tax-cut bill that has frozen the wind tax equity market.
 
The draft bill the House tax committee released on November 2 would make wind companies prove "continuous construction" work after 2016 on any projects that are completed in 2017 or later to qualify for production tax credits at the full rate of 2.4¢ a KWh. 
 
The House bill remains as drafted.
 
However, the report the House tax committee released this afternoon explaining what the bill does says that the provision "is intended to codify" the existing IRS policies.  While the IRS requires continuous work on projects after the year in which construction started, it does not make any developer prove this for projects that are completed within four years.
 
The full House is expected to vote on the tax-cut bill as early as Thursday.

Meanwhile, a separate version of the tax-cut bill taking shape in the Senate would leave in place the existing tax credits for wind and solar and the IRS policies implementing them. The Senate tax committee is marking up the Senate version this week. The full Senate is expected to vote on its bill after Thanksgiving. The two houses will then have to agree on a common text.