Citing the potential of job losses, members of the Colorado congressional delegation called on a congressional conference committee on Tuesday to extend the wind-energy production tax credit as part of the payroll tax extension.

Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall and Colorado U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter, Jared Polis, Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton delivered a letter of support of the PTC to the chairmen of the conference committee negotiating the extension of the payroll tax credit. The letter was delivered ahead of a meeting the committee is holding today.

"The PTC has been very effective in facilitating new market penetration of wind energy and moving us toward a more diversified and cleaner energy portfolio," the lawmakers wrote in their letter. "A delay in this extension would do enormous damage to that progress. Unless the wind PTC is renewed in the first quarter of this year, new wind energy development projects and the thousands of jobs associated with those projects are predicted to drop off precipitously after 2012."

Colorado renewable energy leaders have called for an extension of the wind PTC.

"Manufacturing jobs are critical in America's economic recovery. The expiration of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) would have a devastating impact on Colorado, affecting not only jobs and investment at our large wind manufacturers, but the many supply chain manufacturers that serve the wind industry," said Tim Heaton and Lee Boughey, chairs of the Colorado Energy Coalition.

"To provide the certainty that wind-energy companies need to create more jobs and investment in Colorado, the Colorado Energy Coalition endorses a three- to five-year extension of the PTC."

Colorado is a wind-energy leader, generating the third-highest percentage of power from wind of any state in the nation.

The state is home to several major wind-energy developers and wind-turbine manufacturing facilities, employing as many as 6,000 people statewide.

For more on this topic, go to "Wind production tax credit is worth saving"