ASA Calls For Senate to Include Biodiesel Tax Credit in Jobs Bill

The American Soybean Association is calling for the Senate to reinsert a retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax incentive in the first jobs bill it passes "to save the jobs of 23,000 people working in the biodiesel industry."

The American Soybean Association is calling for the Senate to reinsert a retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax incentive in the first jobs bill it passes "to save the jobs of 23,000 people working in the biodiesel industry."

The biodiesel tax incentive had been included in a version of the Senate jobs measure unveiled last week by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) later stripped the biodiesel and other tax provisions out of the bill.

"There is a direct correlation between the biodiesel tax incentive and creating jobs," said ASA First Vice President Alan Kemper. "If senators really want a bill to save jobs for American workers, they need to put a retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax incentive back in the first jobs bill they consider."

In a statement, ASA said that expiration of the biodiesel tax incentive last December "has essentially caused the production and use of biodiesel in the United States to cease and has placed the 23,000 jobs that are currently supported by the domestic biodiesel industry in immediate jeopardy. Companies have already started laying-off employees, and this situation is certain to worsen the longer the tax incentive is allowed to lapse."

The $1-per-gallon biodiesel tax incentive is structured in a manner that makes biodiesel price competitive with petroleum diesel fuel in the marketplace. Absent the tax incentive, biodiesel is more expensive than conventional diesel fuel.

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