Oklahoma Claims It Owns The Wind, Caves To Oil Lobby To Tax Energy From The Air

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By Claire Bernish

In a slavish display of fealty to the oil and gas industry, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin put forward a plan in the executive budget proposal to tax the state’s wind industry out of existence.

By ending tax credits — ahead of schedule — and imposing the nation’s highest tax on wind power, this Oklahoma law would make renewable wind energy cost-prohibitive while enriching the fossil fuel industry.

EcoWatch reports, “The budget proposes a .5 cent per kilowatt-hour on wind energy—five times the wind tax in Wyoming, which along with South Dakota are the only states that tax wind energy—and accelerates the end of a tax credit, currently set to expire in 2021.”

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The governor’s budget mirrors another bill working its way through state legislature.

Separate legislation proposed by Rep. Earl Sears would end “accumulation of new credits for zero-emission electric generation July 1 and caps annual payments for existing credits at $15 million a year,” reports Tulsa World.

“There’s no question wind has a place in this great state, and has a place in the energy sector,” Sears noted. “What is at hand, we absolutely have to have serious discussion about credits for wind.”

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