energy.agwired.com

New York lawmakers have introduced bills in Congress to provide tax credits for ethanol plants in four states which consume more than 2 percent of gasoline but make less than 2 percent of ethanol. The four states are New York, California, Florida and Texas. Small producers in these states would receive a credit of 20 cents per gallon of ethanol produced, up to 50 million gallons a year, as long as total annual production does not exceed 150 million gallons.

Congressman Brian Higgins of Buffalo, NY introduced Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) Ethanol Stimulus Act of 2006 in the House this week. Logically, Higgins’ district in western New York would stand to benefit from the bill. RiverWright Energy LLC, a Buffalo-based alternative fuel company, is planning to build an $80 million ethanol plant along the Buffalo River with a 110 million gallon per year capacity.

President Bush made a stop in Hoover, Alabama on Thursday to recognize the city’s police department for using E85 fuel.

“You know, the price of gasoline has been dropping, and that’s good news for the American consumer, it’s good news for the small business owners, it’s good news for the farmers. But it’s very important for us to remember that we still have an issue when it comes to dependence on foreign oil. And one way to become less dependent on foreign oil is for us to develop new ways to power our automobiles right here in America,” Bush said in his statement at the Hoover Public Safety Facility.

“What we have just witnessed is a police force that is filling up its vehicles with a fuel called E85. When you hear somebody talk about fuel E85, that means 85 percent of the fuel comes from ethanol. And ethanol is produced from corn. And corn is grown right here in the United States of America.”

Bush told the audience that the police chief claims he chooses E85 “because it’s got a little better “git up” to it. In other words, it works just fine. And it works just fine for other reasons, as well. It works just fine because it helps keep our air clean. It works just fine because it helps address a national security issue. So one of the important policies of governments ought to be to encourage the production and use of ethanol. And there’s a federal role for that. In other words, we provide tax credits.”

Bush also talked about research being done at Auburn University to make cellulosic ethanol from wood and switchgrass. “If that ever becomes a reality, there’s going to be a lot of switch-grass growers,” he said.

Hoover is a town of about 68,000 located outside of Birmingham, where Bush attended a fundraiser with Alabama Governor Bob Riley.

Read Bush’s remarks here.