Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today joined Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) to file a bipartisan amendment to extend the wind energy production tax credit (PTC) to the tax extenders bill unveiled by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday. The amendment would extend the tax credit for two years.

“The wind PTC cuts right to the core of whether and how we want to compete in the global and changing economy,” Bennet said. “It has triggered tremendous economic growth in Colorado and all across the country, and we’ve seen the kind of economic damage that comes with allowing it to expire prematurely. This is a commonsense bipartisan proposal that should be included in this bill.”

Bennet has led efforts in Congress to extend the wind energy PTC. In 2012, he led eight of the nine members of the Colorado Congressional delegation in a bipartisan letter calling for extension of the tax credit and introduced two bipartisan amendments with Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), and cosponsored by Senator Mark Udall, to extend the PTC. He also partnered with Senators Grassley and Udall that year to introduce the American Energy and Job Promotion Act, a bipartisan bill to extend the PTC for wind and several other renewable energy technologies. Bennet successfully led a bipartisan group of senators urging the Senate Finance Committee to include an extension of the PTC in the 2012 tax extenders bill the committee considered.

Colorado generates the sixth highest percentage of power from wind of any state in the nation. It is home to several major wind energy developers and wind turbine manufacturing facilities, employing upwards of 5,000 workers statewide.

Nationally, a permanent expiration of the wind production tax credit could cost as many as 37,000 jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Association.