The latest jobs bill seems to be forgetting the 23,000 workers in the biodiesel industry who are at risk since the provision renewing the federal $1-a-gallon tax incentive was removed. That’s the opinion of Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who saw his version of the jobs bill with the biodiesel provisions get scrapped for a pared down version from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada).

Now, it looks like Reid’s bill will come to a vote on Wednesday after passing an important procedural vote earlier this week. But before the cloture vote, Grassley took to the Senate floor to express his dismay at Reid’s jobs bill without the biodiesel-jobs-saving provisions (this excerpt from IowaPolitics.com):

Either the Democratic leaders are playing partisan politics with tax extenders, or they don’t understand the worth of the provisions to the economy, including job retention and creation. The biodiesel industry alone says 23,000 jobs are at risk due to the biodiesel tax credit being allowed to expire. Those workers are not fat cats.

And in case anyone thinks biodiesel is something only Iowans worry about, these green jobs are in forty-four of the fifty states.

The biodiesel tax incentive was allowed to expire at the end of 2009 while the Senate wrestled over health care reform.