DomesticFuel reporter Chuck Zimmerman recently had the opportunity to sit down with Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis and get an update on the state of the industry. This week, the lame duck session kicked off and this is a very important session for the biofuels industry as they are facing the expiration of several important tax provisions.

“We’re hoping the lame duck session becomes a productive session. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they aren’t,” said Buis. “Unfortunately, lame ducks create mad ducks and that sometimes prohibits them from working cooperatively together.”

Buis continued, “We’ve seen partisan gridlock in Washington for too long. We have some timely issues that are going to be a big deal to our industry and others that need to be addressed by the end of the year.”

Some of these issues include the potential end of the ethanol tax credit, VEETC, the small producer tax credit, and the ethanol tariff.

“Sometimes in lame ducks when you switch power from one party to the other the incoming party says we’d rather wait until January so we can control how these issues are dealt with,” said Buis. Well, that has consequences if they take that avenue and I’m hoping they don’t.”

Growth Energy would like to have an opportunity to take a bigger, broader look at where the industry is going and Buis feels that with the industry’s support, they are well on their way. But he cautions that for change to happen, you can’t allow the current programs to expire before the new programs are in place.

You can hear more about the state of the ethanol industry in Chuck’s full interview with Tom Buis. Ethanol State of the Industry