Farm Bill Contains No Mandatory Funding for Energy Title Programs

by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) ...The bad news is, all mandatory funding for energy title programs were stripped from the farm bill at the last moment. “The programs have lived, but they don’t have money,” said Lloyd Ritter, co-director of the Agriculture Energy Coalition. “Unless the appropriators decide to fund them and that’s a tough battle given the appropriations situation.”

...He (Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis) also said that removing mandatory funding for energy programs effectively killed funding to ethanol infrastructure development through Rural Energy for America Program and second-generation feedstock development through Biomass Crop Assistance Program and the Biorefinery Assistance Program. “As the 113th Congress convenes this Thursday, I urge them to revisit these provisions and act to provide the stability and funding necessary to ensure robust growth and continued success for the renewable fuels industry moving forward,” he said in a prepared statement.

... Ritter called it highly unfortunate that mandatory funding for energy title programs was removed from the bill. The changes happened at the last minute, and it differed from the agreement that had been hammered out by the ag committees in the House and Senate. “The ag committees had a bipartisan, bicameral approach that we thought was a pretty good solution,” he told Ethanol Producer Magazine. “It had a reasonable amount of mandatory funding for core energy title programs.”

The changes were negotiated by minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We really had a good package together for agriculture and ag energy and we lost the energy piece and some other pieces,” Ritter said. “Funding was stripped from a variety of different sections, not just energy, and there were quite a few changes in the overall bill.” READ MORE and MORE (Biofuels Digest) and MORE (DomesticFuel.com)