Senate Biofuel Advocates Want a Piece of Transportation Bill

by Elvina Nawaguna (Roll Call) The bill would set aside $1 billion to build charging and fueling stations for electric-, hydrogen- and natural gas-powered vehicles -- A provision in the Senate’s surface transportation bill that would help pay for charging and refilling stations for zero- or low-emissions vehicles should also support more stations for biofuels like ethanol, say two Midwestern senators.

The bill would authorize spending on highways and bridge projects for five years. Republican Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mike Rounds of South Dakota say incentives in the bill would only benefit wealthy people in coastal states who can afford electric-, hydrogen- and natural gas-powered vehicles, while leaving out rural America.

A section of the bill would set aside $1 billion to encourage the construction of charging and fueling stations along certain highways for electric-, hydrogen- and natural gas-powered vehicles.

Ernst and Rounds are promising to push for the bill to also include refilling stations for biofuels such as E15, which is gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol. Biofuels offer marginal decreases in greenhouse gas emissions — and benefit corn and soybean farmers.

The goal of the underlying provision in the bill is to encourage the use of those alternative fuel vehicles to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But electric vehicle buyers tend to be richer and already enjoy tax incentives when they buy those cars, Ernst said.

“Now, we’re going to have the federal government subsidize charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, which are owned in large part by high-earners in coastal states, while at the same time leaving our corn and soybean farmers and biofuel producers on the sidelines,” Ernst said.

“We want to transition to a lower carbon transportation system, you cannot afford to leave any greenhouse emission reductions on the table,” he told lawmakers at a Tuesday markup of the bill by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“If all emissions-reducing fuels aren’t going to be treated equally by this program, then my preference is to do away with the program entirely,” Ernst said.

Ernst and Rounds will have to contend with Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who has opposed biofuels.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, another Iowa Republican and staunch biofuel advocate, is chairman of the Finance Committee, which will also have to mark up the bill.

An aide for Grassley said the senator supports the effort by Ernst and Rounds, but would not say whether he would use their demands as a bargaining chip.

Asked whether she would still vote for the surface transportation bill if she failed to plug in her biofuel proposal, Ernst said she would vote for it and find other ways to get it done. READ MORE