Wyoming Republicans "No Tax Pledge" doesn't apply to Wind Energy manufacturers and their cunstomers.

So much for the “no tax pledge."

Republicans seem to have no problem raising taxes and killing jobs if it involves an industry challenging the big money special interests in the fossil fuel industries.

Hypocrites? Think they care? Come on folks, their voters feed on having it both ways.

Wyoming Republicans, just like here in Wisconsin, have decided to put up road blocks to kill wind energy. And if that doesn't work, raise taxes to pay down their deficit. LA Times:

Who owns the wind? We do, Wyoming says, and it's taxing those who use it … Then, with great efficiency for a conservative state not traditionally tilted toward burdening the energy industry, they did something no other state has done, before or since: They taxed it … a state trying to close a budget gap that could reach $500 million.

But now, as one of the world’s largest wind farms is about to begin construction aimed at providing clean electricity to nearly a million homes in California and the Southwest — potentially transforming this fossil fuel state into a major player in renewables — some powerful state lawmakers are looking to raise those taxes.

The company that has spent nine years trying to build the wind project ... “Just about every legislator we’ve met with asks us, ‘You tell us how much we can tax you before we put you out of business,’” said Bill Miller, chief executive of the Power Co. of Wyoming.

In their view, the tax increase is more about politics — Wyoming lashing out at clean energy as payback for federal policy aimed at scaling back the coal industry on which the state has always relied.

Republicans there are also recycling an argument used to oppose the XL Pipeline; not enough jobs: 

Supporters of the tax increase say that it likely will not provide anywhere near the jobs and other benefits fossil fuels have. They also say Wyoming doesn’t necessarily need clean energy.

Odder still, the wind company is a subsidiary of company involved in fossil fuels and is owned by a major Republican donor, Philip Anshutz.

Ray Peterson, a contractor who hopes his rig company will get work with the new wind project, wrote to the revenue committee this month to oppose any move to raise taxes further.

“We expected the Obama Administration to wage war on coal and oil as they promised,” he wrote. “What is most alarming, and completely unexpected, is realizing Wyoming state officials are willing to threaten killing the creation of new business, much needed jobs, a generous amount of tax revenue and diversification of our state’s energy dependent economy to wage war on renewable energy sources.”

Here in Rawlins, the seat of Carbon County, a name that now seems plenty ironic, local leaders support the wind project, but not the idea of taxing it further.