Rep. David Young (R-IA) and Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA) led a bipartisan group of more than 40 other members of Congress from California to Connecticut who voiced their strong support for a multi-year extension of the biodiesel tax incentive in a letter to House leadership last week.

The letter notes that the biodiesel tax incentive was retroactively renewed for 2017 in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, passed in March this year. Unfortunately, the incentive was not extended to 2018 and is currently expired.

“Biodiesel and renewable diesel producers are putting investments on hold in the face of the uncertainty created by the off-again, on-again nature of tax incentive eligibility. A multi-year extension of the biodiesel and renewable diesel incentives will provide the industry the certainty it needs to continue to generate the economic and environmental public benefits,” the Congressmembers state in the letter.

The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) thanked the representatives for their support.

“Right now, soybean farmers are harvesting a record crop but facing extreme uncertainty about the price they’ll receive and whether they’ll have access to markets,” said Kurt Kovarik, NBB’s Vice President of Federal Affairs. “Biodiesel adds value to every bushel of soybeans and provides a market for the growing surplus of soy oil. A multiyear extension of the biodiesel tax incentive would give farmers a welcome bit of certainty this year.

Kovarik added that a multi-year extension of the tax incentive would also allow biodiesel producers, blenders and retailers the opportunity to plan and expand the market for biodiesel.