Biodiesel fly in sees nearly 100 descend on Washington to push for biodiesel tax credit

In Washington, nearly 100 biodiesel advocates from across the country are visiting Capitol Hill Tuesday urging Congress to bring back the biodiesel tax incentive as proposed in both chambers of Congress. Participants include biodiesel producers, distributors and feedstock suppliers representing more than two dozen states.

One theme is clear among members from each of these geographic regions—the biodiesel tax incentive works, having helped grow the biodiesel industry from a 100-million-gallon market in 2005 to more than 2.9 billion gallons in 2016. The current legislative proposals in the U.S. Congress reform the structure of the incentive such that U.S. producers—those who make biodiesel here in the United States—would qualify for the credit, and not those who blend biodiesel from anywhere into the world. Doing would cut off subsidies for foreign manufacturing, create jobs here at home (instead of in other countries), reduce the potential for tax fraud, continue to lower the cost of diesel fuel for consumers and save taxpayer dollars.