Meter Reading: Wind Jobs Threatened, The Good and Bad of the Energy Boom, and More

Photo by ANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images

If a federal wind energy tax credit expires, Texas jobs could be at stake.

The potential expiration of a federal tax credit could have negative effects on Texas’ wind energy industry; as the U.S. develops more and more energy, some are taking a skeptical eye; and more, all in your morning meter reading:

• Our neighbors at KUHF Houston take a look at what the expiration of the federal wind energy tax credit could mean for jobs in Texas. “EDP Renewables North America, a Houston-based wind developer, cut its workforce by 10% in September [2011],” they report. “Last month, Vestas Wind Systems announced it will close its research and development operations in Houston. Both companies cited uncertainty over the tax credit as the reason for the layoffs.”
• Meanwhile, tax credits for the fossil fuel industry may be on the table as the country approaches the so-called ‘fiscal cliff.’ The Hill says deductions for the oil industry “haven’t been ruled out” as a way of increasing tax revenue. 
• Lots of coverage yesterday of a new report that says the U.S. will produce more oil than Saudi Arabia within five years. Politico casts a skeptical eye on what that could mean: “Fights are already emerging as natural-gas producers — seeking to profit by exporting their excess — run up against environmental groups and some congressional Democrats who demand that their products stay home. Green groups worry that the U.S. will be even less determined to rein in greenhouse gases. And the effects on domestic politics are hard to predict as rising energy powerhouses in regions like the Rust Belt compete with traditional oil and gas hotbeds on the Gulf Coast.”
• And on the issue of water, the New York Times examines what climate change means for water supplies. Surprisingly, climate change could actually help to recharge groundwater supplies, the paper finds. A new study “found that the more intense rainfall expected in many parts of the world as a result of climate change may help to recharge the aquifers that supply groundwater.”