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Tax credits for energy industry are under scrutiny 

Credit:  By JIM MALEWITZ | The Texas Tribune | OCT. 18, 2014 | New York Times | www.nytimes.com ~~

AUSTIN – Susan Combs, the state comptroller, stirred controversy last month when she said Texas’ growing wind energy industry should “stand on its own two feet.”

“Billions of dollars of tax credits and property tax limitations on new generation helped grow the industry, but today they give it an unfair market advantage over other power sources,” said Ms. Combs, a Republican, upon the release of a study meant to illustrate how energy policy affects Texans’ wallets.

The 15-page report described wind power as a massive strain on taxpayer dollars. It cited state property tax reductions, a generous federal production tax credit and a nearly $7 billion power line build-out geared toward adding wind to the grid.

Critics, including renewable energy advocates, energy market experts and a Republican oil and gas regulator, dismissed the report largely for what it did not say: that the new power lines have yielded benefits across the grid and that Texas has subsidized its moneymaking fossil fuels sector for a century.

If we want to have that conversation about how we invest in our energy infrastructure let’s have that conversation,” said Marita Mirzatuny, a climate and energy policy specialist at the Environmental Defense Fund, which supports the expansion of renewable energy. “But let’s do it across the board.”

Ms. Mirzatuny get that wish in the coming weeks. The comptroller’s office will soon release a report that could rekindle debate surrounding Texas’ largest incentive for natural gas operators.

From 2008 to 2013, a tax exemption covering “high-cost natural gas drilling” has shaved more than $7 billion off operators’ tax bills, according to data from the comptroller’s office.

The incentive, which applies to wells completed after 1996, originally cut taxes on just 5 percent of gas produced in Texas. Now, the tax code treats more than half of Texas gas as “high cost.” That is largely because of advances in hydraulic fracturing, an expensive technique that has boosted production and spurred the state’s drilling boom.

Industry advocates say the exemption keeps drillers in Texas, where a 7.5 percent severance tax on oil and gas is higher than what most states require. (Texas operators also pay relatively high property taxes, but do not pay state income tax.)

“I think it gets misconstrued by the folks that would do harm to the oil and gas industry as a giveaway, but it’s really not,” said Adam Haynes, a partner at Cross Oak Group, an energy firm in Austin.

In recent years, the policy has sliced more than 3 percent from the effective severance tax rate for all gas produced in Texas, the comptroller’s data shows. Falling prices, however, have reduced those savings since they peaked in 2008.

Some lawmakers have called for reform. In 2013, the state Legislative Budget Board recommended overhauling the exemption, which with other incentives has “reduced many producers’ tax liabilities to zero,” it said.

The group’s report noted that the policy is based on a 36-year-old federal production definition, and it allows “high cost” certification “regardless of the actual production cost.” In 2009, for instance, Texas certified a $24,000 well even though the median drilling cost was $2.3 million.

Lawmakers last session declined to change the policy, but they instructed the comptroller to study its effectiveness. That report is due by Nov. 1. Whether lawmakers will follow any of Ms. Combs’ recommendations is not known.

“People ask me, when are we going to cut the subsidies for renewables?” said Michael E. Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. “I say, probably the same day we cut the subsidies for oil and gas, which is never.” (The University of Texas at Austin is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

Source:  By JIM MALEWITZ | The Texas Tribune | OCT. 18, 2014 | New York Times | www.nytimes.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

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