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• "Under the current tax regime, it's pretty hard to envision any large scale wind development in the foreseeable future," Johnson said.
• Representatives of the wind energy industry said South Dakota's tax structure puts it at a disadvantage because it levies a 2 percent excise tax on contractor's gross receipts for a project, a tax other states do not have. South Dakota also charges a 4 percent sales tax on materials used in constructing wind farms and other projects.
• Rob Rebenitsch, director of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association, said South Dakota has 784 megawatts of installed wind power, while North Dakota has twice as much. Iowa has 4,536 megawatts of wind power installed, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
• Rebenitsch said more than 13,000 megawatts of wind generation was installed across the nation last year in 192 projects costing $25 billion.
• "Unfortunately, none of that generation was installed in South Dakota," Rebenitsch said.
• Wind energy officials said the bill is a good start, but they believe larger incentives are needed to attract wind farms to South Dakota. They said they hope the measure will be changed to provide larger incentives as it moves through the Legislature.
• Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls, said he objected to the bill because it deals with only one industry.
• Johnson, the governor's chief of staff, said state officials and legislators are making progress in devising an overall incentive program that would cover agricultural processing and all other kinds of large construction projects.
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