In Japan, the government wants to see aviation biofuel used during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and as such as launched its first public private panel to look at opportunities and challenges. Beyond just seeing commercial flights running on biofuel by the start of the Games, the country also has ambitions to produce its own […]
In Jamaica, the government wants to boost its ethanol blend to 20% from the 10% it has had in place since 2008. Most of the ethanol currently blended is imported from Brazil, with some also coming in from the US, but the country wants to move towards producing its own ethanol despite the local industry […]
In Illinois, the state’s agriculture director Philip Nelson is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to reconsider the proposed Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) volume obligations that were laid out earlier this spring. This action comes as several partner states, such as Iowa and Missouri, testified recently in opposition of the proposal at the […]
In Washington, the Brookings Institution released a report calling on the Federal Government to help capitalize and scale up the new state-level green banks by smoothing their access to relevant federal dollars. “Support requires no major change of policy,” the report authors say. “Instead, it requires mostly administrative action: clarifications of definitions, clarifications of eligibility, […]
In Washington state, state lawmakers passed a $15B transportation package by a 27-22 vote that includes a provision that “effectively prohibits a Clean Fuel Standard for Washington state,” according to the Low Carbon Fuels Coalition. The bill now proceeds to the Governor for his signature, which is expected. The “poison pill” provision in the bill […]
In Washington, following a letter from nearly half of the US Senate wanting cross-agency recognition of carbon neutrality for forestry-based bioenergy, the White House Office of Management and Budget has come out against the idea as laid out in the Department of Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016, also known as H.R. 2822. […]
In Washington, nearly half of the US Senate has written to the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Energy and the EPA administrator strongly urging the agencies to streamline support of biomass for energy across all agencies, providing policies that work to ensure more use of sustainable biomass energy rather than the complicated policy framework […]
In Hawaii, the governor says he’ll veto a bill passed by the state legislature repealing the tax credit on biofuels because it would eventually be found unconstitutional. Another move made to limit ethanol tax breaks had already been found unconstitutional, contravening the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The current policy offers up to $4.5 million in […]
In New Jersey, the state’s General Assembly has approved a bill to allow biofuel production from used cooking oil, fats and plants, and now awaits the governor’s signature to come into law. The Senate already approved the bill in March. Previously biobased liquid fuel, biodiesel fuel, heating oil, renewable biomass, and renewable diesel fuel were […]
In Washington, Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Representatives Ted Poe (R-TX) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) for reintroducing the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act of 2015 (S.1656 and H.R.2883). This bill “levels the playing field” according to its sponsors, “by giving investors in renewable energy projects access to a decades-old corporate structure […]
