biofuels

This morning I had the opportunity to start my day in Big Sky Country where I was invited by Senator Jon Tester to participate in the Small Business Opportunity Workshop hosted at Montana State University.

We have a full house here having reached capacity at 150 attendees with another 80 RSVPs still arriving.  Clearly the word is out on our workshop and the farmers and ranchers of Montana are eager to hear about job creation and economic development opportunities here in the state.

In an address last month to students of the Peter Kiewit Institute and members of Nebraska’s agriculture industry, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack cited numerous examples of how USDA is meeting President Obama’s challenge to Americans to “out innovate, out educate and out build the competition.”

The Peter Kiewit Institute offers academic programs from both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Engineering and the University of Nebraska at Omaha's College of Information Science and Technology. Although the correlation between the Institute and the Department of Agriculture may not be immediately evident, Vilsack’s remarks quickly painted a picture of two entities with a common goal — success through innovation and technology.

USDA Business and Cooperative Programs Administrator Judith Canales convened a roundtable of renewable energy experts from the southeast in Nashville on January 26, to discuss development and marketing of bioenergy technologies and advanced biofuels.

Over 50 biofuel stakeholders and agricultural leaders participated in Pennsylvania’s Biofuels Forum on October 27^th.

USDA Rural Development and the Farm Service Agency held a Forum on Expanding the U.S. Biofuels Market on October 15 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. I participated in this important Forum, which sought input from local biofuels producers and stakeholders on the USDA’s interim plan on how to develop a successful biofuels market. The plan outlines the development of a successful biofuels market capable of achieving the U.S. Renewable Fuels Standards mandate of producing and using 36 billion gallons or renewable transportation fuel per year by 2022.

The Obama Administration has made domestic production of renewable energy a national priority because it will create quality American jobs, combat global warming, reduce fossil fuel dependence and lay a strong foundation for a strong rural economy. 

There is an excitement at USDA with respect to bioenergy and biofuels and much is going on – a BIOFRENZY if you will – not in a sense of chaos – but rather many challenges and much to do.  The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will be implemented July 1, 2010. The RFS2 calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be used in the US transportation fuel supply by 2022 - and the majority of this total must be advanced biofuels.