August 27, 2012 12:14 AM UTC

Pace To Wind Power Industry: Scott Tipton Can't Help You

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel summarizes action last week over the wind power tax credit:

Vestas Wind Systems and one of its suppliers both announced layoffs this week in the Denver area, following earlier Vestas job cuts in Pueblo.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to end the tax credit, and this week, the Republican Party made ending the credit a plank in its official platform.

That puts national Republicans at odds with Tipton, who wants to extend the credit.

But Pace continued his criticism of Tipton for not pushing hard enough against his own party to get the credit renewed.

“Congressman Tipton has done nothing to extend the production tax credit,” Pace said in a news release. “In fact, Tipton voted twice for the (Paul) Ryan budget that would eliminate the wind production tax credit, costing hundreds of jobs right here in Southern Colorado.”

One of the less well-known facts about the debate over extending the wind production tax credit is the industry’s (at least thus far) significant aversion to politicizing the issue. The reason is easy to understand: a number of supporters of the tax credit are Republicans in wind energy or generation equipment producing states, like every member of the Colorado GOP congressional delegation except Rep. Doug Lamborn. These are the Republicans now in a terribly awkward position now that Mitt Romney has announced his support for allowing the tax credit to expire.

It’s made even worse for GOP members of Congress who support extending the wind tax credit, but who also voted for the Paul Ryan budget plan that would, in addition to its better-known litany of social safety-net horrors, also end the wind production tax credit!

If Democrats can’t take such contradictory statements and actions from the same candidate, and turn them into a means to fully deprive said candidate of their credibility, something’s wrong. Between Tipton’s promise of “no cuts, no privatization” of Medicare and items like this, all tying back to the vice presidential nominee’s budget plan so many Republicans voted for, we’re talking about the most potent political weapon Democrats have had since the Iraq war.

CD-3 is one of a few bellwether races that will demonstrate its success or failure.