An elixir for health reform? Lawmakers offer 'black liquor.'

The Washington Post
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009

With an amendment to the health-care legislation, lawmakers would close a loophole that allows paper companies to exploit a tax subsidy on "black liquor," a pulp byproduct. International Paper has received $1.5 billion in credits this year from a similar subsidy.

House Democrats might use a swig of "black liquor" to help health-care reform go down.

Democratic leaders, who have been searching high and low for ways to pay for health-care reform, have fixed their sights on a cellulosic biofuel tax subsidy that could benefit the paper industry, which has been burning a pulp byproduct known as black liquor as fuel since the 1930s.

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