Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he will insist that any jobs bill introduced in Congress should include an extension of a $1 per gallon tax credit for biodiesel which was allowed to expire at the end of 2009. “The sooner the tax credit’s restored, the sooner biodiesel related facilities and jobs can be saved from going under,” Grassley said in a conference call with reporters this morning.

Most of Iowa’s 15 biodiesel plants have closed in recent weeks because of the lapsed tax subsidy. The Senate is scheduled to debate a jobs bill this week. Grassley says he’s concerned with other legislative proposals which he believes are “hostile” to small business development and job creation.

“Particularly coming from these looming tax increases and more regulations and mandates like the cap and trade climate bill and health care legislation that’s piling so much on business, particularly small business, that they don’t know what’s coming out of Washington…making them reluctant to expand and hire people,” Grassley said.

Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has been working with Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, on creating bipartisan jobs legislation. “The legislation can not become a spending bill like the stimulus legislation did last year. The public should and will reject that sort of an approach,” Grassley said. “In fact, last year, my phone calls were about 83% against the stimulus bill that I voted against.”

Grassley says he slept in his Capitol Hill office last night so he could be there for the start of business today. A blizzard pounded the Washington D.C. area over the weekend — shutting down the federal government on Monday.