April 28, 2010
White House to Main Street Tour to Visit Macon (Missouri Ruralist)
The agriculture community of Macon in northeast Missouri will be a featured stop on President Barack Obama’s White House to Main Street Tour on Wednesday afternoon, April 28.
The President will tour the Poet Biorefining plant at Macon, which produces 46 million gallons of ethanol a year using corn. In the future, Poet officials have stated that they plan to add facilities that convert cellulose from sources, such as grass and wood, to make ethanol at this plant and others around the country.
Poet Biorefining is a member of Growth Energy, a coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters, which plans to welcome President Obama to the Macon ethanol plant. “President Obama’s support of our nation’s ethanol industry helps create U.S. jobs in hundreds of towns like Macon, while strengthening our energy independence and national security,” says Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis.
The President’s visit to the POET Biorefining ethanol plant reinforces his Administration’s strong support for ethanol producers and rural America.”
In 2009, the ethanol industry created and supported more than 400,000 jobs across the country, contributed $53.3 billion to the nation’s GDP and generated $8.4 billion in federal tax revenues, according to Growth Energy. The domestic production of nearly 10.6 billion gallons of ethanol that same year eliminated the need to import at least 364 million barrels of oil to manufacture gasoline, keeping $21.3 billion in the...
