HB2472 would lower the maximum state payments to large wind projects from $10 million to $3.5 million -- shaving only about $20 million from the rapid growth of the subsidies. That made sense when the Legislature approved the bill, and it makes even more now that the program is expected to grow by nearly $100 million ...one of the first orders of business should be to override the governor's veto of HB2472, and reduce the unnecessarily large tax subsidies of some energy projects in Oregon.

Tax credits are essentially subsidies, and subsidies should generally be temporary. In the field of renewable energy, subsidies should be offered just long enough to encourage the emergence of technologies and economies of scale that allow new energy sources to compete without public assistance. They should never be so large or long-lived that they amount to a giveaway, promoting the development of projects that would have been completed without tax credits.