ISSUE OVERVIEW / KEY POLICIES

Achieving balanced food and fuel policy is essential to increasing energy independence while maintaining food affordability.

Renewable Energy and Byproduct Research Federal funding should be provided for broad-based applied research into renewable energy technologies, economics, and by product safety, quality, and usability.

Emerging Bio-Energy Mandates New mandates should be limited to energy from emerging bio-based sources (i.e. cellulosic, methane) that do not adversely impact animal feed availability.

Incentive Neutrality/Counter-Cyclical Global energy demand will increase by more than 50 percent by 2030. Subsidies and tax credits for agriculture based energy sources should be equally available among all forms of energy and source neutral as a means to grow opportunities for all forms of energy. Fuel-based tax credits should function inversely to
oil prices.

Energy Infrastructure Incentives We support subsidies/tax credits to grow agriculture based energy infrastructure. Infrastructure incentives should be source/feed stock and renewable energy neutral.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) We believe that policymakers should provide producers regulatory and legislative policy options to elect out of CRP to respond to market forces. Support a working lands approach to reintroduce acres into crop production.

Import Tariffs We support exposing consumers to more renewable fuels choices by allowing the current ethanol tariff to expire in December 2008.