United States President Barack Obama recently urged Congress to pass manufacturing legislation that would extend two tax incentives benefiting renewable energy companies - the Production Tax Credit and the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit.

If the former tax credit is not renewed by the end of the year, as many as 30,000 jobs in the wind industry could disappear in 2012, according to White House predictions. The latter has already expired, but the president is advocating for the congressional approval of an additional $5 billion in credits to support investments in clean-energy companies that create wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal fuels while maintaining manufacturing compliance.

"The issue is, the longer you wait the more critical this tax becomes," said Jan Blittersdorf, president of Vermont-based NRG Systems, in a recent statement.

"Developers have already started layoffs and every quarter of this year we are going to lose jobs," added Tom Carnahan of Wind Rose Partners. "It will be a tragedy not to find a way to get this tax extended."

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