---

The recent vacation taken by my wife and I to New Mexico and Colorado provided a temporary escape to a more summer-like climate, dramatic scenery, wildlife species we'd not seen before, and a deeper glimpse into the cultural history of our country.

Many things catch your eye on a driving trip of some three thousand miles. With the elevated price of gasoline at the time, one of the things we watched for was attractive gas prices. Though our vehicle gets pretty respectable mileage, on a trip of that length, the fuel tab ads up quickly.

An energy-related phenomenon of a very different kind also caught our eye on this trip. It was the many sightings of windmills, or wind-driven turbines, as they're more properly called. We were familiar with them from many trips to Iowa during our daughter's undergraduate college years, from 2001 to 2005, and several business trips to Iowa in later years. But we were struck by how much more common they now seem to be.

We saw more windmills in southern Minnesota, and along the Interstate 35 corridor from the Minnesota border to where we turned west at Des Moines. We also saw many from there west to Omaha, and in Nebraska as well, in places where we had seen few, or none, just a half dozen years ago.

On a trip like this one, where "scenic" and "nature" were big priorities, you might think that these windmills - each of whose three blades is longer than a typical semi trailer - would seem like a futuristic, technological intrusion. But we instead found them almost soothing in their rhythmic, silent rotations, standing like sentinels on wind-blown ridges stretching to the horizon.

They seemed no more out of place than the classic images in paintings of Holland, the nation with whom windmills are often associated. There, they were used to pump water to keep the sea out of the fields and lands behind the nation's dike system. Here, they generate electricity as they're turned by steady prevailing winds; in concept, it's similar to our use of running water to generate hydroelectricity at power dams. It was inspiring to see the harnessing of a force of nature to generate energy, without the polluting effects and "greenhouse gases" that come with burning fossil fuels like oil and coal.[[In-content Ad]]

Almost as we speak, in Washington, D.C., Congress is wrestling with the issue of whether or nor to continue promoting such renewable energy sources through the use of special tax breaks as incentives to build and demonstrate its potential. Tax incentives are nothing new. We have them to encourage us to save for retirement, to donate to charities, educate our children, and for other things thought to be good for our country and citizens.

Over the last decade or so, there have been special tax credits for businesses to invest in alternative energy production, including wind power. Unlike some parts of the tax Code, these are short-term, and have to be reexamined every two years or so, to determine if they should be maintained. Most renewable energy tax credits are set to expire at the end of this year.

Some in Congress want to end the tax incentives, saying that it is cheaper to use natural gas, oil or coal, and that U.S. taxpayers are paying part of the cost to make wind-generated electricity available. They say that giving tax credits to new energy technologies is "picking winners and losers" in the energy marketplace. "Let free market forces decide," they say.

Those in favor of maintaining the renewable energy credits argue that it will eventually be necessary to depart from our almost total dependence on burning fossil fuels in our vehicles, homes, businesses and power plants. while still abundant, fossil fuels are not renewable. As each ton of coal or barrel of oil is burned, it's gone.

Supporters of renewable energy say it's better to develop it sooner, rather than later, especially if we're concerned about air and water pollution, and the predicted negative effects of climate change. They argue that such alternatives as wind power will have to be ready on a massive scale, something that can't be done overnight.

Lawmakers who favor maintaining tax incentives for wind and other renewable energies also point to almost 100 years of providing tax credits to explore and develop oil and natural gas resources, the necessity of which some question at a time when oil and gas producers are enjoying record profits. One big difference, however, is that these oil and gas credits do not have an "expiration date," as the tax credits for new energies do.

However, when eliminating the century-old oil and gas tax credits was recently proposed in Congress, opponents said it would have the effect of a tax increase, something that is a dirty word these days in Congress. It seems hard to argue that tax credits for oil and gas production are different from tax credits for producing wind and other alternative energies.

Maybe it's just a matter of what some in Washington, D.C., are used to. That, of course, includes large campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.

---