WASHINGTON, DC – The House Small Business Committee held a hearing today to hear from small businesses and trade associations in the renewable fuels industry about how current economic conditions and federal policies are affecting them.  The hearing titled, “The State of the Renewable Fuels Industry in the Current Economy,” began with an underlying consensus from the witness panel and Committee Members that we must work fast to provide the U.S. with energy independence.  Currently, sixty-percent of the petroleum the U.S. needs is imported.  Ranking Member Graves highlighted this agreement by saying, “I’d rather depend on U.S. farmers for energy than Saudi Arabia.”

According to the National Biodiesel Board, the biodiesel industry in 2008 consisted of 176 plants with 2.6 billion gallons in production capacity and supported 51,893 jobs.  The biodiesel industry added $4.287 billion to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and generated $866.2 million in tax revenue for federal, state and local governments.

Several witnesses from the renewable fuels industry told the Committee that the biggest obstacle they are facing, as many small businesses dually claim, is access to capital to help keep their business operating.  The failing economy and gasoline prices were the next concern and the fading ability to provide jobs to the surrounding area of fuel production plants was also mentioned.  The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 expanded the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which determines the volume of renewable fuel required to be blended into gasoline, from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billions gallons by 2022.  Mr. Brooks Hurst, member of the Board of Directors of the Paseo-Cargill Biofuels Plant recommended that the Congress urge the Obama Administration to move to implement the RFS provision to provide additional support for the nation’s biofuels producers.

 In his testimony, Mr. Hurst of Tarkio, MO, closed by saying, “It is crucial that we work together to ensure that the U.S. biofuels industry continues to play an important role in rural development and growing our fuel supply.”

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