Advocate Summary

Issue:  Wind Energy Tax Credit 
Advocate:  Florida Power & Light Co. – Christopher T. Chapel
Date of Interview: 6/11/02

Basic Background
Well the problem with that, when you say one issue, is The biggest thing that is on our plate right now is the energy bill, which is more that one issue, it’s an omnibus bill with dozens of things that are important to us. [Are there any main points you are concentrating on?] The biggest priority for my company is something called the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit, we’re the largest producer of wind energy in the world. There is a tax credit for the production of wind, as the name denotes, that expired at the end of last year which we subsequently got renewed for two years, but we would like a five year extension. And there is a five year extension in both the house and senate bills.

If there were no costs, there wouldn’t be a problem, they would just renew it. But since it is rather somewhat costly, it’s not really terribly expensive in the bigger scheme of things, in the Senate energy bill for example the cost is like 17 billion and all told this section 45, where the Wind Energy Tax credit extension is about one billion, and there are some other extraneous things in there that we don’t really care for, like I think ours costs about 500 million over five years, which isn’t excessive by any stretch. Dealing with the money is a significant issue, somebody has got to pay for it, and you have to tell them why they should pay for it. 

This issue is big to us and small to the world, it’s nice when you can carve a niche. It’s our niche, it’s our market, you know we own 65% of the wind energy in the country, which a lot of people don’t know, but we’re a low profile company.  [And how much does wind make up your company?] Miniscule.  At FPL energy, which is our unregulated entitity, it’s 28%, at our utility, at Florida Power and Light it’s zero. So all told over everything it’s five percent. That’s two different companies, we own a few companies we have a holding company and then Florida Power and Light which is a utility that serves Florida, then you have FPL which is our unregulated energy which operates in fifteen states and then you have FPL fibernet which is a fiber company and that’s just in Florida. 

Prior Activity on the Issue 
None mentioned.

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
We lobby. It entails educating members on how important it is and educating them on how well it works, how well it has worked historically and how well it will work in the future. And convincing them that we’re right. And convincing them that it’s a smart use of tax payers dollars. 

There are pro-forma exercises that you have to go through, part of that is letter sending, part of that is here’s a letter from the president of my company saying this is our number one issue, please support it, thank you. There are a lot of grassroots efforts you want to do from the states, you want people from Iowa to write the Iowa members. [Have you organized that?] Yes. 

We have written letters, but ultimately a lot of it is relational. It’s why you have lobbyists here, anyone, a secretary in Florida, could write a letter and send it to the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee you have to be able to walk in there office and say this is about us, this is about the relationship we have, and what can we do for each other. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
None mentioned.

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
There are obvious champions, Chairman Bill Thomas for one thing, for a long time was a sponsor of this legislation, because he become chairman he dropped his sponsorship. Mark Foley, who is our congressman in Florida and also a member of the Ways and Means Committee took up the bill. In the Senate, Chairman Grassley, now ranking member Grassley introduced the bill this congress. All those people from Iowa…the members from Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and then some of the other states we have projects in are very supportive. In the Senate that’s very helpful because that means the entire Democratic leadership team, Harry Reid has a project in Nevada so we work with him. Senators Dorg and Daschel and Conrad and of North and South Dakota and then Grassley and Baukus in Montana. And obviously anybody that has to do with Finance in the Senate or Ways and Means in the House, so that means Bill Thomas, Jim McCreary Mark Foley, and then you have to look at leadership in the House too Delay and Hasert, and we try to get some Democrats to support it as well. I mean it’s got to be pretty broad, we try hard. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
None mentioned. 

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
Members from the states with wind projects in them such as Iowa, Nevada and North and South Dakota.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
There is a trade association called the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)..um, their effectiveness is debatable.
There aren’t other companies that are as supportive of wind, not even close. We’re really reliant on ourselves, I mean you can’t leave something that big to somebody else and hope it gets done, hope that they are doing the assignments that you all gave each other. I mean this is our priority we take care of it. Even if I asked AWEA to do something I’d still follow up myself. You just do it. There are other things, we have nuclear plants, there are other companies with nuclear plants, their interests are just as vested as ours so we trust that they are doing things on nuclear issues, that they’re taking care of their delegation. But on this its not the same, because there is no one else in the same position as us, so we work very hard at it. 

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
Who else is for it, well you’ve got the environmentalists that are supportive, you’ve got some utilities that are supportive too, just not nearly on the same scale, every business has its priority. 

I don’t know which environmental groups, I don’t know if they are lobbying. A lot of those groups like the the NRDC would put up a report of issues we support and then they have that in there, I don’t know. A lot of them fought hard for a renewable portfolio standard that was also in the Senate energy bill, which would basically mandate the use of wind energy, so I would imagine they’d be for a tax cut. 

And you probably have groups like Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste that would oppose it based on it being a tax credit for private industry. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
It entails educating members on how important it is and educating them on how well it works, how well it has worked historically and how well it will work in the future. And convincing them that we’re right. And convincing them that it’s a smart use of tax payers dollars.

We’re clean energy, it’s a renewable resource, since the tax credit was enacted in 1992, wind energy has gone from 22 cents to 4 and a half cents a kilowatt hour, it’s a clear case of government-private partnership actually working, and making it not just reasonable but feasible. Talking with anybody, whether Democrat or Republican they believe there is too much reliance on oil and too much reliance on fossil fuels, so somehow you have to get away from that. Which leaves you with renewable since there’s no push to renew our nuclear program, there is really only one reliable source and that’s wind. Solar doesn’t work on a large scale basis at all, it’s too expensive. Geothermal and hydro are probably capped out were they are and wind is really that last remaining resource. And it actually works well for land owners because they get to put the windmills, believe it or not the people in the mid west want them badly. Because we pay them. It doesn’t take up much of their property they can’t make the same living as they want because they are growing crops. So it works out well for everybody. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Nature of the Opposition
Opposition is people that want the same pot of money, that’s where you get into problems with anything. The Congress is like a sand box with some tools some toys in it, and there’s not quite enough toys to go around to all the kids. It’s the same sort of thing, it’s not like people are opposed to wind, that would be like being against to panda bears. There’s nothing really wrong with it, what’s wrong with it is that if it costs a billion dollars, how many other people want that billion? – well everyone, we’ve got to be more right that everyone else. So it’s not as if you have to go lobbying against anyone. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
None mentioned. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Some of the environmentalists at first said it killed birds, but that’s really been proven untrue, you still hear that argument from fringe groups, so maybe you’ve got some of them still but I don’t hear it much. It’s kind of a joke argument, it’s not true. 

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
None mentioned. 

Described as a Partisan Issue
None mentioned. 

Venue(s) of Activity
Senate Finance
House Ways & Means

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
None mentioned. 

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Support and five year extension of the status quo tax cut for wind energy.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
Oh, how I became a high powered Washington Lobbyist? I worked on the Hill, I worked for a member of the Florida delegation on the Commerce Committee for six years. And that was right out of college, I had no intension of every working on the Hill, I was an intern and they offered me a job and I took it. I was planning on going to grad school to get a Ph.D. and I was enrolled and everything, just never went, just never showed up.  So worked on the Hill, left, I got offered a job because I worked a lot on energy restructuring, electricity utilities, some states have deregulated, you’ve heard about the debacle in California so I moved out to California in 1998 to work for an unregulated company and then I came back here with a professional lobbying firm, - that was unrelated - and then I got offered a job with the former staff director of the Senate Energy Committee, who left the Senate about the same time I did and had started his own lobbying firm and we had worked together a lot when I was in the House and he was in the Senate on the same exact issues. So he started his own firm and offered me a job and then FPL offered me a job about a year later. And I had a long relationship with this company because of my work with the Florida delegation.  

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We don’t do any of that [issue-related research]. We’re a business we know what the costs are, we wouldn’t do it if somebody hadn’t figured that out, but we don’t share our figures with people on the Hill, at all. What we tell them is what we are willing to invest. I mean I can tell a member of Congress that my company was ready to, when the tax credit expires at the end of the year, I mean you can look at the source, it’s not like we’re letting in any trade secrets, last year we invested a billion dollars in wind energy. Well, one could assume we would have done it again this year had the tax credit not expired. But that’s not research, it’s actually readily public, I mean we are a publicly held company so we release a lot, there is no trade secrets that we are giving out. To think tanks, nothing at all. We have paid consultants, but they’d be lobbyists, we don’t pay them to think for us.    

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
All two of us, there’s my boss who’s vice president and then there’s me, and then there are two capable assistants. 

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Just one unit – this office. 

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
None mentioned. 

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Not applicable.

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous
I think this is the problem when you’re asking about one issue, what you don’t realize is that you’re changing the way we approach things because we don’t work in a vacuum that. What if you walk into a member’s office and you have two issues and you ask which one is more important, you are asking about nuclear waste for example you know, open up Yucca mountain, and they say to you, weren’t you just in here a couple of months ago asking about this wind energy tax credit thing, if I could do one thing for you which one would it be, not that any member would say that but you know you do end up having to trade, and you do end up having to do your best to convince them that you’re always right, which can be difficult. So yeah, when you do that it changes things because you are talking about just one issue.