Biodiesel and Green Jobs

This week biodiesel production facilities in Ralston and Newton, Iowa, were idled “due to the continued lapse of the biodiesel tax credit” and the resulting “limited sales and reduced sales forecasts,” according to Renewable Energy Group, which operates the facilities.  Since January 1, the company said it has had to lay off 45 percent of all staff  in their network in Iowa as a direct result of the tax credit lapse and all employees at all locations have taken pay cuts.

These facts and job losses are a direct result of Congress letting the tax credit expire on December 31, 2009.  Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid knew 17 months ago that the tax credit needed to be extended.  But instead of making sure it got done, and it’s non-controversial, so it could have been done at any time, they made it part of a debate over controversial measures.  Playing politics with the biodiesel tax credit was playing with fire, and the people losing their jobs and income are paying the price.  

There was no reason that Congress couldn’t have moved an extension through by the end of the year and, in February, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) and I tried to correct the fact that the leaders had failed by proposing a bipartisan solution that would have given biodiesel producers a chance to make it through the political storm.  Here, again, the leaders of Congress reneged and opted for a partisan political course that left the biodiesel tax credit without being extended.

There’s a lot of talk about green jobs helping to turn the economy around, but the credibility of the congressional leadership has been severely undermined on the issue due to the failure to pass a straightforward extension that would save and create green energy jobs right now.  I’ll continue fighting to get the biodiesel tax credit extended with the hope that it can help salvage some of what’s been lost.  In 2009, there were biodiesel production facilities in 44 states.  So far the tax credit lapse has cost 29,000 clean-energy jobs, and about 23,000 more are at risk.

I’m also introducing legislation to extend key ethanol tax credits through 2015.  We can’t risk a repeat performance with ethanol, where another 112,000 green energy jobs are at stake.