SALT LAKE CITY — Some Utah lawmakers want to phase out a $2,000 tax credit homeowners can receive for installing rooftop solar panels.

The credit that cost the state budget under $1 million annually will amount to $20 million in 2016.

Rep. Jeremy Peterson, R-Ogden, is proposing phasing out the credits by 2021.

“We want to promote the independence of the industry,” he told members of the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee. “The industry was given some training wheels, so to speak, with the tax credit, to kind of prop it up. And it seems to have immediately taken off, suddenly and unexpectedly. So it seems time to pull those training wheels off and let the industry run under its own strength.”

Refunds to homeowners would also decrease over time.

Peterson said the credits are causing schools to miss out on potential funding.

Utah Solar Energy Association president Ryan Evans said the elimination of the tax credit coupled with a possible change in billing for solar customers would hurt the industry and cause job losses.

The interim committee recommended pushing the proposal forward.

Rep. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, said for every $1 Utah has given to renewables, the federal government has provided $74 in subsidies to oil and gas.

“We should carefully review the state’s support for all our energy industries, not just a select few. We need to approach these kinds of credits, and the future of our energy plan in Utah, as a transitional period,” Briscoe said. “We need to be doing more, not less, for the health and economic success of the people and neighborhoods we represent.”