It was already a given that energy issues would dominate the writing of the 2007 Farm Bill, but even more support for domestic fuels like ethanol and biodiesel is expected now that the House and Senate Agriculture committees will be run by corn belt Democrats.
Forbes reports that with Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa steering the committees, “The consensus is that this makes it even more likely that we’ll have some aggressive biofuels policies adopted,” says Nathanael Green, a biofuels expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Green’s group would like to see ethanol plants, which are powered on natural gas or coal, switch to renewables such as wind.
“We’d be interested in seeing a grant program that would help these ethanol facilities adopt these technologies,” Green says.