WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Bill Delahunt hailed passage of legislation in the Massachusetts House of Representatives yesterday that would make the Commonwealth the first state in the nation to promote advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and clean fuels such as biodiesel.

“New England is addicted to oil.  In Massachusetts alone, we spend more than $10 billion a year on petroleum, and it is very clear where most of those dollars are going,” said Delahunt, noting that Saudi Arabia alone made $160 billion in 2005 exporting oil.  “I applaud Speaker DiMasi and the Massachusetts House of Representatives for taking steps that will both reduce our dependence on foreign oil and help boost the emerging clean energy industry in the Commonwealth.”

Last November, Delahunt joined with Governor Deval Patrick, Senate President Murray and House Speaker  Sal DiMasi,  to unveil a comprehensive plan to reduce the region’s addiction to oil by boosting the state’s emerging advanced biofuels industry.   Delahunt also released a report authored by the Northeast Biofuels Collaborative, entitled “A Proposed Strategy To Promote Biofuels Production and Use in Massachusetts”.

The report noted that residents and industry in the Commonwealth spend roughly $10 billion annually on petroleum fuels, almost as much as natural gas and electricity combined.  However, since Massachusetts does not produce or refine oil and has limited stocks, it is highly susceptible to fuel shortages and pump price spikes, as experienced after Hurricane Katrina. The report also notes that Massachusetts is the third largest heating oil market in the entire country.  These combined factors mean that the Commonwealth’s businesses and residents pay the third highest energy prices in the nation.

Specifically, the legislation passed by the House is based on a comprehensive set of recommendations adopted by a state appointed task force that met periodically with Delahunt.  The bill exempts cellulosic ethanol from the state’s gasoline excise tax based on the percentage of renewable fuel used. For example, the gasoline tax for a blend of E10 (10 percent cellulosic ethanol/90 percent petroleum) would be reduced by about 2.3 cents. The bill also requires that by July, 2010, all diesel transportation fuels and distillate heating oil blends contain 2 percent biodiesel, or other qualifying renewable diesel. It then increases the requirement by 1 percent a year to a cap in 2013, when all diesel transport and heating oil blends will contain 5 percent of the renewable fuel by volume.

According to Brooke Coleman, Executive Director of the New Fuels Alliance who advised the state’s Advanced Biofuels Task Force, the bill will encourage further investment in these and other technologies and make Massachusetts one of the national leaders in the commercialization of advanced biofuels.

“We are uniquely positioned in Massachusetts to draw upon our financial and intellectual capital to move us beyond petroleum,” Coleman said. “This bill will provide biofuel producers, researchers and investors with a critical degree of market certainty that will alleviate some of the risk inherent in a petroleum-dominated fuel sector.”.”

The bill also transitions the gasoline tax exemption and the biodiesel blending requirement into a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), should such a system be adopted in Massachusetts or by the federal government. Additionally, the bill establishes a joint legislative commission to study the feasibility of production tax credits for advanced biofuel producers or farmers who grow sustainable feedstocks.

The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.

 

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