The American Farm Bureau wants a better tax deal for U.S. biofuel feedstocks, not to keep out alternative or competing fuels from foreign producers. AFB and other farm groups recently called for the pending 45Z tax credit to be restricted to domestic versus imported feedstocks like Chinese cooking oil and Brazilian ethanol.
But Farm Bureau’s Joe Gilson says the push is about boosting the lot of domestic producers and the volumes of biofuel needed for aviation, not about creating new trade conflict. He says, “We’re not trying to stop the imports of the Chinese cooking oil if that’s what the market is demanding. All we’re saying is, the extra tax treatment that it would get would not qualify under the 45Z.”
AFB, the National Farmers Union, the National Corn Growers Association, and the American Soybean Association urged the White House and Treasury Department to restrict the tax credit to domestic producers. Gilson says, “There’s a lot of demand right now for renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, and we understand that the Chinese cooking oil is a qualifying feedstock, but we have to be putting U.S. farmers and ranchers first when it comes to this tax credit.”
Gilson says disputes with China or Brazil over its renewed ethanol tariffs are not the groups’ aim. He says, “We’re not looking for any kind of retaliation, right now. All we want is for a U.S. tax credit to be using U.S. feedstocks for the fuel.”
But the U.S. ethanol industry is eyeing retaliation after Brazil reinstated an 18 percent tariff on imported ethanol and the U.S. industry appealed to Brazil’s president for relief. Surging Chinese cooking oil imports here have also attracted attention, with U.S. lawmakers and the oilseed industry raising objections to the oils’ qualifying for tax credits.
Story by Matt Kaye/Berns Bureau; courtesy of NAFB News Service
