Investing in Foreign Countries

These companies saw their tax liabilities to which they could apply a tax credit either shrink or vanish altogether as a result, said William Yeatman, an energy policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This destroyed any incentive companies had to pursue green energy production

The federal government, in an effort to recreate the incentive, transformed the tax credit into a cash grant in which companies, especially wind-power developers, would receive 30 percent of the capital cost in a grant, Yeatman said. The government made this change in Section 1603 of the 2009 American Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus bill.

“The stimulus’s purpose was to create jobs,” said Yeatman. Each job created by the grant program cost $1.2 million, according to the report.

“That cost-per-jobs figure is eye-popping,” Yeatman said.