Congress ‘lost faith’ in advanced bioenergy, key lawmaker says

Des Moines Register
4:39 PM, Dec 6, 2011 by Philip Brasher

Programs the Obama administration has been pushing to promote next-generation biofuels are likely to have little funding in the next farm bill, according to the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson.

“There will probably be hardly any money” in the bioenergy section of the next farm bill “because we’ve lost faith” in that sector, Peterson told reporters today.

He said that the failure of Congress to pass legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions killed off support for agricultural energy programs. The failure of projects like the Range Fuels biofuels project in Georgia didn’t help either. “That’s a symbol of what’s going on,” Peterson said. Range Fuels received a loan guarantee through one of the programs in the 2008 farm bill.

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