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Pennsylvania residents might soon take the chill off their cold winter nights (and cool spring, summer and fall days and nights) with a dose of biodiesel.

This post from Heatingoil.com says a new bill introduced in the state legislature by Sen. Ted Erickson would require heating oil to be blended with biodiesel, as well as lowering the sulfur content in regular diesel:

The bill in Pennsylvania would amend a 2008 bill known as the Biofuel Development and In-State Production Incentive Act. The low-sulfur mandate would go into effect on May 1, 2011; heating oil in Pennsylvania is currently allowed to have a sulfur content of up to 2,000 parts per million. The requirement for heating oil to include 10 percent biodiesel would go into effect on May 1, 2013.

The post goes on to say the Pennsylvania Petroleum Marketers supports the bill, and the Keystone State could be joining other states in the Northeast that either already have or are proposing a biodiesel-in-heating-oil mandate.

Although it has a broad base of support across the country (unlike a certain health care measure that 60+ percent of Americans don’t favor), renewal of the federal $1-a-gallon biodiesel tax incentive seems that it will have to wait at least a month at the earliest before Congress will get to it.

This article from Reuters says with Congressional recesses coming up, the measure is unlikely to see any action until at least the middle of next month:

While the House and Senate have passed bills to renew the credit for 2010, they must agree on a common text to send to the president. “Neither the House or Senate has signaled any particulars on how they will do that,” said Michael Frohlich of the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group.

A resolution is unlikely before mid-April, said two biofuels officials. Congress soon will recess until April 13, they noted, and a final vote on the credit could be delayed until late April or later, depending on the pace of House-Senate negotiations.

So, instead of moving quickly on a bill that is projected to save 23,000 jobs that have been or are being lost by the biodiesel industry because of the loss of the credit, we have lawmakers in D.C. staying up late on a Sunday night to pass a bill (healthcare) that has only about one-third of the country’s support. Maybe they should have nick-named the measure the “Biodiesel Health Bill.”