House Bill Could Help Small and Mid-Size Dairies Deal with Excess Nutrients

BioRefineries/Renewable Fuel Production, Biorefinery/Fuel Production Infrastructure, Federal Legislation, Feedstocks, Funding/Financing/Investing, Infrastructure, Manure, Methane/Biogas, Minnesota, Ohio, Opinions, Policy, Sustainability, Wisconsin

June 20, 2016

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(Environmental and Energy Study Institute) On June 16, Representative Tom Reed (R-NY) and Ron Kind (D-WI) along with 12 Republican and Democratic co-sponsors introduced the Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Act (H.R. 5489), which would expand the eligibility of biogas systems under the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), a 30 percent tax credit for eligible renewable technologies. Currently, the ITC extends only to biogas systems which use the produced methane as electricity, whereas H.R. 5489 would extend the 30 percent tax credit to biogas that is put into natural gas pipelines and used as compressed renewable natural gas in vehicles. Increasingly, nutrient management is a significant problem on farms – particularly those with livestock or dairy operations – but the economics often don’t work to install nutrient management systems.

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States such as Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin have adopted various nutrient management strategies to keep excess phosphorous and nitrogen out of waterways. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, six states have agreed to nutrient budgets imposed by the EPA to address nutrient flows from fertilizer and manure into the Bay.

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With increasing nutrient management issues, manure represents a significant challenge for farms, but not just in terms of water quality. Cow manure is roughly 50 to 70 percent methane. While shorter-lived in the atmosphere, methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), 84 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in a 20-year period. Agriculture is the largest source of domestic methane emissions, at 23 percent.

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Anaerobic digestion can turn a problem into a solution – the process converts manure, food scraps and agriculture waste into biogas and fertilizer, allowing farms to be more self-sustaining, economical, and environmentally friendly.

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Lack of policy support, such as net metering or inclusion of the ITC have further hampered the progress of these systems.

The American Biogas Coalition (ABC) and the National Milk Producers Federation think that expansion of the ITC for biogas systems could tip the scales in favor of adding more digesters to U.S. farms. READ MORE and MORE (Climate Central)

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