Oregon Senate OK’s Carbon Neutral Biomass Bill

- April 9, 2015, KTVZ

State Sen. Tim Knopp (R- Bend) car­ried Sen­ate Bill 752 on the Sen­ate floor Mon­day and the effort to declare bio­mass “car­bon-neu­tral” sailed through unanimously.

SB 752 declares bio­mass to be car­bon neu­tral, tak­ing a rule pre­vi­ous­ly cre­at­ed by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty and mak­ing it law. It is chief spon­sored by Knopp and Sen. Chris Edwards (D‑Eugene), chair of the Sen­ate Envi­ron­ment and Nation­al Resources Committee.

The bill passed out of com­mit­tee last week on a bipar­ti­san, unan­i­mous vote and did the same on the Sen­ate floor Monday.

“I believe it’s impor­tant for Ore­gon to endorse the car­bon neu­tral­i­ty of bio­mass. We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate jobs while also pur­su­ing sound envi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy.” said Knopp.

SB 752 now heads to the House, where Knopp hopes it will be tak­en up soon. “This is a good bill, espe­cial­ly for rur­al Ore­gon,” he said.” I’m look­ing for­ward to the House send­ing this bill to the gov­er­nor for her signature.”