Thank you very much for the question.
There's no doubt on ecoENERGY. We went back to our members many times and asked what the single best driver for wind is in this country, and it always came back to ecoENERGY.
The nice thing about ecoENERGY is that it really had two things about it that people liked. One is that it was very equitable. Whether you had one turbine, a community group, a municipality, or a large developer based in Canada or elsewhere, you could access ecoENERGY. So it was well thought out in terms of being equitable. It was also nice and consistent. It provided funding over 10 years.
Now, in the States, their program, the production tax credit, had two problems with it. One, you could only actually use it if you had a big tax appetite, so it was only really big players that could access it. And it kept coming in and out: they would renew it, there would be tons of builds, they'd drop it off, there would be nothing, it would come back in.
The Recovery Act did two things to the production tax credit. One, it made it refundable, so everyone could access it, again whether you were a farmer or a large corporation. The second thing is it extended out to 2012. It took all the advantages of ecoENERGY and then bumped it up, and it has been a huge driver.
On ecoENERGY, it is true that projects are being built this year that are receiving ecoENERGY and they will continue to receive it for 10 years, but after March 2011 Canadian projects will not receive any money from ecoENERGY. The same developer could go into the United States, spend $100 million on a wind project, and receive $30 million back in incentives from the federal government.
The Recovery Act really identified wind as being a driver for economic reform, particularly in difficult economic times. They were counting on their industry to jump up to meet that rising demand, and that's what they've done. In the last year we've seen 44 new wind facilities installed in the States, mainly through the rust belt, and their manufacturing has really gotten a shot in the arm. It's a very effective mechanism and we would very much like to see it continued.