July 01, 2010
Vilsack Pushes for Energy Legislation
Published in DTN
WASHINGTON (DTN) -- U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent a message Wednesday to Congress members to pass comprehensive energy legislation this year.
The U.S. Supreme Court already has cleared the way for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
However, during his keynote speech at the 25x'25 national summit in Washington, D.C., Vilsack said Congress should make that decision.
"It's not as if nothing is going to happen," he said. "The question is who is going to define what happens. Even (EPA) Administrator (Lisa) Jackson would rather there be legislative direction rather than administrative. It's better that the people's representatives act on this.
"The president has been trying to make the case that we've talked about this forever. Comprehensive energy legislation is something the country has needed for a long time. If I were in Congress, I'd be working on this night and day," said Vilsack.
Just last week, USDA released a report that outlines a plan to move the U.S. to 36 billion gallons of biofuels production by 2022.
That includes plans to build new biorefineries in all 50 states that will use a variety of feedstocks to make ethanol, making blender pumps available across the country and expanding the number of flexible fuel vehicles.
In light of that report, Vilsack said federal lawmakers need to implement policies to spark biofuels production, including reinstating the $1 biodiesel blenders credit that expired last December and extending the 45-cent ethanol blenders tax credit that expires at the end of 2010. And the EPA should approve a move to E15.
Without the tax credit, biodiesel production has shut down.
"We have to send the right signals to the market to extend the biodiesel tax credit," he said. "It is frustrating to me and frustrating to everyone in this room. That needs to happen."
Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis said part of comprehensive energy legislation should remove barriers to expand ethanol production.
"What we need is comprehensive legislation," he said. "We want to see more FFVs, blender pumps, loan guarantees for ethanol pipelines -- we want to see a lot of things. The toughest thing in any business is uncertainty. If you're an investor and you know the tax credit is good for one year, it's not enough. They need some certainty."
Comprehensive energy legislation, Vilsack said, is about .....
