South Dakota advances five-year biofuels bill
In South Dakota, the State’s Senate Affairs Committee endorsed SB 196, a new bill that seeks to set up a five year plan to assist the state’s ethanol industry to sell more ethanol. Current law has an annual budget of $7 million for production, and individual ethanol plants are limited to a lifetime subsidy amount of $10 million.
The new bill would lower the annual budget to $4 million for budget years 2012 and 2013, then increase to $4.5 million from 2014 through 2016, while lifetime subsidies would be lowered to $9.682 million. The savings would then be shifted as follows; $3.5 million to cover grants for ethanol infrastructure such as marketing and blender pumps at fuel stations, and $2 million going to the REDI program which provides low interest loans to expanding and new businesses.
Category: Policy