Advanced BioFuels USA

by Dino Grandoni and Steven Mufson (Washington Post)  … GM, like a fleet of other car manufacturers, is seeking the extension of a tax break that has for a decade helped sustain the sale of cars that need little to no gasoline to run.  This has triggered an intense lobbying battle with oil and natural gas companies, which supply the fuel that runs the internal-combustion engines that dominate American roadways.

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Kildee (Rep. Daniel Kildee (D-Mich.)), along with (Michigan Senator Debbie) Stabenow, sponsored legislation to expand the quota of tax credits so companies would be able to sell three times as many electric vehicles before the tax credits, originally offered as a lifeline after the 2008 financial crisis, start to run out.

But oil and gas interests say extending the tax credit would be unfair to middle- and lower-class consumers who are unable to afford electric cars. And they’re making inroads with their own Republican allies.

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“Regardless of whether you support the tax credit for electric vehicles or not, there is no denying taxpayers are overwhelmingly subsidizing Americans that can afford to buy their own car,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who has proposed legislation to wipe out the tax credit. “If you want an electric car you can buy one — there are more available now than ever before.”

Here’s how the program now works: The federal government provides a tax credit of $7,500 to buyers for the first 200,000 electric vehicles sold by each company. After a manufacturer sells that first tranche, the tax credit drops by half for cars sold over the next six months — then by half again for another six months before disappearing entirely.

The loss of the credits will hurt those companies at the forefront of electric vehicle development, erasing their advantage over gasoline-powered cars and putting them at a disadvantage to other makers of electric vehicles.

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Electric-vehicle advocates are petitioning Congress to allow consumers to earn a tax credit of at least $7,000 for 600,000 vehicles from a single carmaker before the credits start to phase out. Though more than 1 million electric vehicles are on the road in the United States, that represents a tiny sliver of the more than 270 million registered cars.

Two major auto companies, Tesla and GM, have already crashed into the 200,000-car threshold. Two more, Nissan and Toyota, probably will run into the same problem by 2021.

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Not only does the legislation have the backing of the powerful Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents a dozen automakers including GM, it also has the support of several major environmental and public health groups. They include the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association, as well as the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the investor-owned electric utilities that would help power the plug-in cars.

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The trade association, which represents refiners, worked with Ernst & Young to calculate that lawmakers’ plan to extend the tax break bill could cost the federal government $15.7 billion over 10 years.

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Pyle (president of the Institute for Energy Research, Thomas J. Pyle) and other opponents, including the American Petroleum Institute, also note that the credit benefits individuals wealthy enough to buy electric vehicles, which tend to be expensive.

They cite a study by the right-wing Pacific Research Institute that found that 79 percent of the tax credits were claimed by households with an adjusted gross income of more than $100,000.

This could resonate in swing states. “You’re basically asking Iowa voters to subsidize wealthy Californians,” said Pyle, who along with other tax credit opponents plans to zero in on members of Congress who represent those too poor to buy electric vehicles.

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The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, run by fiscal hawk Mick Mulvaney, called in March for ending the tax credit altogether.  READ MORE

Our million-dollar bus doesn’t add up. We did the math (Dallas Morning News)