FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE– June 15, 2010
Contact: Michael C. Frohlich/NBB
(o) 202.737.8801
(c) 202.258.6699

Biodiesel Industry: Americans Strongly Support Tax Incentives for Clean Energy
New Stanford Poll Finds 84% of Respondents Favor Alternative Energy Tax Breaks

WASHINGTON, DC – With the U.S. Senate poised to consider legislation this week that includes reinstatement of the biodiesel tax incentive, a new poll released by Stanford University found 84 percent of respondents favored federal tax breaks to encourage alternative energy, including water, wind and solar.

“The research clearly demonstrates Americans are crying out for home grown solutions to develop clean energy sources and end our addiction to oil,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB). “The biodiesel tax inventive is a perfect example of the type of investments the federal government should be supporting to cut carbon pollution, lessen our reliance on petroleum and create green jobs.”

Jobe said the biodiesel tax credit, in just five years since its enactment, has resulted in the construction of over 150 renewable refineries in 44 states, 23,000 jobs, and billions of dollars of net tax revenue to the U.S. Treasury, all while displacing billions of gallons of petroleum.

Congress allowed the biodiesel tax credit to lapse on December 31, along with all other expiring tax provisions. As a result of the expiration, much of the industry has just shut down and almost half its employees have been laid off, leaving the industry on the verge of collapse.

Retroactively reinstating the biodiesel tax incentive was incorporated into H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which passed the House last month and is now under consideration in the Senate.

“Further inaction by Congress to complete this common sense policy is causing the loss of jobs every day, derailing investment in its first successful Advanced biofuel and it’s simply unacceptable,” Jobe said.

Researchers at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment interviewed 1,000 randomly selected adults nationwide on June 1st through June 7th for the survey released last week.

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The National Biodiesel Board is the national trade association of the biodiesel industry and is the coordinating body for biodiesel research and development in the U.S. NBB’s membership is comprised of state, national, and international feedstock and feedstock processor organizations, biodiesel producers, fuel marketers and distributors, and technology providers. Additional information about biodiesel is available online at www.biodiesel.org.