Biofuels Gain Traction at Minnesota Legislature

- by Jon Collins, March 31, 2015, Min­neso­ta Pub­lic Radio

A bill to cre­ate a $5 mil­lion tax cred­it to advance the devel­op­ment of the bio­fu­el indus­try in Min­neso­ta is gain­ing trac­tion at the state Legislature.

New­er tech­nolo­gies allow the use of plants like native prairie grass­es or alfal­fa for con­ver­sion ethanol.

The so-called advanced bio­fu­el tax cred­it was ini­tial­ly opposed by envi­ron­men­tal­ists because the most com­mon ingre­di­ent, corn, can be very polluting.

“It’s a sum­mer annu­al that is in the sum­mer active­ly soak­ing up water and fer­til­iz­ers, but in the spring or in the fall the land is basi­cal­ly bare, and that’s when we get the heavy pol­lu­tion,” said Steve Morse, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Min­neso­ta Envi­ron­men­tal Partnership.

But envi­ron­men­tal­ists were won over by a com­pro­mise that requires that any new bio­fu­el plants with state sup­port include at least 50 per­cent peren­ni­als like alfal­fa in the bio­fu­el feed­stock with­in five years. Morse said peren­ni­als lead to less runoff and pol­lu­tion than corn production.

“Peren­ni­als are plants that grow year-round,” Morse said. “If you dri­ve out in the coun­try­side on a day like today, you’re already see­ing alfal­fa field and oth­er types of peren­ni­als start­ing to green up because they’re func­tion­ing on the land­scape, so what that means is you’re dra­mat­i­cal­ly decreas­ing the pol­lu­tion load­ing on those lands.”

Under the bill, farm­ers who shift over from corn pro­duc­tion to peren­ni­als will also be eli­gi­ble for state sup­port through the Board of Water and Soil Resources.

Morse said the new poli­cies would help Min­neso­ta meet a fed­er­al man­date to increase bio­fu­el production.

The bill has been approved by com­mit­tees in both the House and Sen­ate. If it’s signed into law, the tax cred­it will be avail­able on July 1.