With our congress busy fretting over raising taxes, the health care bill, the BP oil spill, and other less significant matters, the biodiesel tax credit has gone by the wayside.
For a supposedly bipartisan issue (renewable fuel that is domestically produced), biodiesel has been stuck in the Senate at least 4 times that I am aware of. It now sits as Senate bill S.1589 and House Bill H.R. 4070, both of which are a much needed multi-year tax credit for biodiesel. A couple of calls to my congressmen informed me that HR 4070 is in the Ways and Means Committee (as it has been for a year) and the House is apparently waiting on the Senate for a first move on it, since they’ve sent similar bills which have died in the Senate three times now.
Yikes. I’ve watched 5 biodiesel plants go out of business this year. How can our Congress be so obtuse? We need renewable, domestic energy. Biodiesel is an immediate drop-in replacement for petroleum diesel. What is the problem here exactly?
Who cares if it’s “green” or not? (It is.) Who cares if it “create jobs” or not? (It does.) We can stop sending money to the Middle East right now by using biodiesel. Sure, it’s not going to replace all petroleum diesel. We’ve got to find other solutions too. But we’re spending over $315 Million dollars per day on foreign oil just from the Arabs. Even a 10% reduction would be a savings of over $1.1 Billion dollars per year. Money that would be spent right here in the USA.
I have a hard time understanding what is so complicated about this in Washington. Perhaps I should send my 9 year old daughter to explain it to them. Even she gets it.
