Oregon Public Broadcasting

Renewable energy advocates are taking a close look at how Oregon is planning to change its incentives for new projects.

Governor Ted Kulongoski  announced Wednesday that he’s adopting recommendations to revise the Business Energy Tax Credit system, or “Betsy”. 

State agency directors suggested that the tax credits for large wind projects be capped, among other changes.

Rachel Shimshak directs the advocacy group, Renewable Northwest Project. She says the way the tax credit would work going forward isn’t entirely clear, and that could be bad for business.

Rachel Shimshak: “So long as the rules are clear and the way a project can be introduced and constructed in order to achieve some BETC support is clear, that’ll be good. To the extent that it’s vague, that’s not so good.”

The changes to the “Betsy” follow an Oregonian newspaper investigation.  It showed that multi-million dollar subsidies to large wind farms helped dramatically increase the cost of the program.

The governor earlier vetoed a bill that would have scaled back the credits.