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Reforming biodiesel tax credit

The American Soybean Association (ASA) remains hopeful the biodiesel tax incentive will be reformed to a producer credit.

Lance Peterson is a board director from west-central Minnesota who took part in ASA’s recent summer board meeting on Capitol Hill.

He says legislation introduced in the Senate changing the $1 dollar per-gallon credit from blender to producer is gaining traction.

“We got a lot of positive feedback in regards to (changing the credit).  We think its got a decent chance of moving through.  The wrinkle in it is going to be ‘what gets accomplished during an election year?”

Peterson tells Brownfield under the current blender’s structure, foreign biodiesel producers are taking advantage of the U.S. tax system.

“Argentina and other countries have found a loophole where they send biodiesel this way, but we’re also seeing palm converted into biodiesel that makes its way into the U.S.”

Last year, nearly a third of the U.S. biodiesel market was made up of imported product.