May 21, 2013

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Senate panel votes to keep state tax break for ethanol-blended fuels

May 15, 2013 By

Rob Hogg

Rob Hogg

The Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee this morning passed legislation that preserves the current price advantage for ethanol-blended gasoline.

The state tax on a gallon of ethanol-blended gasoline is 19 cents today. Other gasoline is taxed at 21 cents a gallon. Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, says there’s broad, bipartisan support to keep this the tax break for consumers who buy ethanol.

“The idea originally was that’s an incentive to encourage people to use ethanol and so that is an incentive we’re going to preserve for another year,” Hogg says.

It saves those who buy ethanol-blended fuels at Iowa gas stations an estimated $8 million annually. Hogg says the bill also ensures Iowa retailers have the “freedom” to sell whatever blend of ethanol they want.

“There was some belief that you could have national oil companies dictating that: ‘Dealer, you can’t sell E15, or if you can sell it, it has to be at a separate pump out behind the building and you can’t take credit card payments,’” Hogg says. “So it’s not just about E15. It affects blender pumps. It affects E85. It affects everything.”

This ethanol-related legislation has passed the Republican-led Iowa House in slightly different form. Democrats in the senate are balking at a proposal included in the House bill that would permit as much as 5000 gallons of fuel to be stored in an above-ground tank Supporters say farmers want the change, as current law limits the size of above ground fuel storage tanks to 1100 gallons. Hogg says the proposal raises a few concerns for him.

“Number one is you get bigger spills and, number two, you could have bigger explosions,” Hogg says. “You know I did that official form of legislative research. I “Googled” 5000 gallon tanks and found a big explosion in Pennsylvania.”

Hogg says that prompted him to “go slow,” review the proposal with the fire marshal and push the decision off ’til next year.

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Time is running out on ethanol tax break

May 14, 2013 By

Time is running out at the statehouse to extend a state tax break which makes ethanol-blended gasoline cheaper than pure petroleum. Jim McNulty at the Iowa Department of Revenue says the law which keeps the state gasoline tax two cents less per gallon for ethanol blends will expire at the end of June.

A bill under consideration in the Senate would extend that for another year. “It will be 21 cents a gallon for non-ethanol blended gasoline and 19 cents for ethanol blended gasoline,” McNulty says. “The schedule is already in place. We’ll continue that two-cent difference.”

But if the bill doesn’t pass, the tax will be 20 cents a gallon for both blended and unblended fuel. That would increase the amount money available to spend on road and bridge repairs across the state. “If everything went to 20 cents a gallon, if this didn’t pass, we’d be looking at 8-million dollars more for the Road Use Tax Fund,” McNulty says.

The tax break is part of a larger bill governing ethanol blending. The House passed the bill last week and a Senate panel took it up Monday.

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Senate votes to send state taxpayer support to food banks of Iowa

April 16, 2013 By

The Iowa Senate has passed legislation that would set up new tax credits for Iowans who donate home-grown food to food banks.

It also would devote $2 million in state tax money to Iowa food banks every year. Representative Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, is the bill’s main author.

“We can begin our state’s journey to end hunger today in our own backyard, one dollar at a time,” Petersen said.

Thirty-four Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Senate supported the bill, but 15 Republicans, including Senator Jerry Behn of Boone, voted against it.

“Iowa should not be in the grocery business,” Behn said. “Let’s let the private sector do what it does. Let’s let the food banks do what they do.”

Senator Jake Chapman, a Republican from Adel, said that state appropriation to food banks removes the “choice” of charity.

“I cannot support a bill that requires and forces taxpayers to donate,” Chapman said.

The bill is a second attempt to send state tax dollars to food banks. Last year an overwhelming majority of legislators voted to provide food banks with half a million dollars worth of state support, but Republican Governor Terry Branstad vetoed the idea. During today’s debate Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, said he was “disgusted” by Branstad’s action.

“Here’s a man who lives in a building provided by the State of Iowa — beautiful building, a mansion,” Hogg said, “…and in that mansion where he lives, gets a state-funded chef.”

Those comments riled Republicans like Senator Sandy Greinerof Washington, Iowa, who supported the bill.

“You don’t know how close you came from turning my vote from a yes to a no,” Greiner said. “You never know where your friends are — and you almost lost one today.”

Senator Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, said it’s a “crime” that one in five Iowa kids goes hungry on a regular basis, while Iowa farmers are converting corn into ethanol.

“That is the height of arrogance, when you can take your food in a hungry world and turn it into fuel to put in your vehicles and yet we can’t feed our children, in our state, in our own town, in our own neighborhoods?” McCoy said. “That is a complete breakdown of morality of a state, simple as that.”

Senator Dennis Guth, a Republican from Klemme, said it is a “crime” to force state taxpayers to donate that $2 million to food banks.

“I decided I’d call some of the folks back in my district that work with the food banks and they claim they’ve had adequate funding,” Guth said. “Whenever they get a little short, all they have to do is put out the words and there’s plenty of funds that come in.”

Senator Bill Dotzler, a Democrat from Waterloo, scoffed at that.

“Those of you who believe that there isn’t hunger in Iowa, you’d better open your eyes and take a close look around because it’s there,” Dotzler said.

Iowa is one of 13 states which do not provide taxpayer support to food banks. If the bill becomes law, Iowans could qualify for a tax credit of up to $5000 for donating the food they raise to food banks.

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Farmer likes results of collecting corn stover

April 1, 2013 By

The farmer who is the guinea pig for a program that seeks an environmentally friendly way to collect the stalks, leaves and cobs left over from corn harvesting for use in making ethanol says he is pleased with the results. The U.S.D.A. and Dupont announced an agreement Friday to work together on the conservation plans for harvesting what’s known as corn stover and other plant matter.

Jeff Taylor farms 1,600 acres north of Ames and has provided the test material for the program development. “Right now the program we’re working on, I would say they take maybe 40-percent of the corn stover that’s out there. So on a normal year we’d probably produce five to six tons of corn stover — and that would be on a 200 bushel yield,” Taylor says.

“After we get done working with Dupont, at each field they’ll one-point-eight tons per acre that they’ve taken off our fields.” Taylor says the removal of corn stover has been a compliment to his operation. He says farmers are planting more corn on each acre — in his case from around 26,000 seeds an acre five years ago to 34,000 an acre now — and the plants with better genetics take longer to break down.

“We started having a matt of stover in the fall that for producers we started adding more tillage to it to try and control that amount of stover that’s out there because of higher populations. So as you remove a third to 40-percent of that, it saves me a tillage pass , it saves me time as a producer,” Taylor explains.

“And I found within a short period of time, my emergence, as the germination comes out, the seeds come out quicker.” He says Iowa State University has done soil testing throughout and have found the stover removal is helping soil quality. “As we remove a little bit, I’m applying less nitrogen, I’m tilling the soil less and ending up having with the same amount of nutrients back, I’m having the same yields or better. And it’s been a great compliment to us as farmers, Taylor says.

The stover is made into large bales. Taylor says they’ve worked with a combine developed by the Department of Energy that goes through the field and captures the stover as it comes out the back and makes it into bales. Taylor prefers the one-pass method, but says you can also do a second pass and rake up the stover after a regular combine comes through and harvests the corn.

Taylor says the bales of stover add to his bottom line.) “Now we’ve got another commodity that we didn’t have before. So there’s some agronomic things that are benefiting us, there’s some monetary things. We get compensated for the bale too, so for my kids who are going to come up and hopefully be six generation farmers, to me it’s just another revenue stream and a compliment to our farming operation also.

The stover bales from Taylor’s farm — and others in a 30 to 50-mile radius — will go to Nevada where DuPont is building a 30-million-gallon-a-year cellulosic facility.

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Worker dies in “oxygen-deficient” area at ADM plant in Cedar Rapids

January 2, 2013 By

Authorities suspect a lack of oxygen led to the death of a worker at the Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Cedar Rapids. 

Two men were going to do maintenance on a tank in the plant where corn is fermented. A statement from the Cedar Rapids Fire Department indicates the tank area may have been an “oxygen-deficient environment.”

Plant employees found the two men unconscious early this morning and pulled them to another area of the plant. Emergency crews arrived at about 7:30 a.m. and transported both men area hospitals. The 50-year old A.D.M. employee died. The other victim, a 46-year old man, is listed in stable condition at a Cedar Rapids hospital.

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IFB president urges farmers to “educate yourself” about water quality plan (AUDIO)

December 5, 2012 By

Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Hill speaks at the group’s convention.

The president of the Iowa Farm Bureau is urging members of the organization to embrace proposed changes in farming practices designed to reduce run-off into Iowa waterways. 

“I’m speaking to farmers now: if you aren’t familiar with Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy, you should educate yourself,” says Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill of Milo.

The voluntary plan unveiled a couple of weeks ago by Governor Terry Branstad and State Ag Secretary Bill Northey calls on farmers to take a number of steps to reduce soil and fertilizer run-off when it rains.

“Some farmers will say: ‘There’s nothing more I can do.’ Other farmers will say, or other folks will say: ‘Farmers are doing nothing,’” Hill says.

“Neither statement is complete or accurate in and of itself. It is in our best interest to engage in this water quality discussion.”

But Hill warns there is a “big task ahead” to come up with answers that can work in a state like Iowa with “unpredictable” weather patterns.

“We need progressive science and research,” Hill says. “We can’t gain new ground by returning to the past or standing still.”

Critics of the proposed water quality initiative accuse state officials of giving the Farm Bureau too much input in drafting the plan. Iowans can provide their opinions of the plan to state officials, as the public comment period is open through January 4 and Hill is urging Farm Bureau members to submit comments.

Hill made his remarks early this morning, during a speech at the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual meeting in Des Moines.

AUDIO of Hill’s 17-minute speech.

His address was a sort of status report on farming in Iowa, including the state’s renewable fuels industry and two, new fertilizer production facilities.

“Never before has Iowa, at once, experienced so much prosperity and so much progress,” Hill said. “State of the art research has been the cornerstone for our advancement in technology, in higher yields, fewer inputs, more resilient genetics and the pathway to a progressive bio-economy.”

In 1912 farmers formed Farm Bureau organizations in Clinton, Scott, Muscatine and Black Hawk Counties. The statewide Iowa Farm Bureau organization was formed 94 years ago.

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Triple-A calls for halt of E-15 sales, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association responds

November 30, 2012 By

Triple-A is issuing a warning about E-15, saying sales of the fuel should be halted until it’s more thoroughly tested. The motor club is urging the federal EPA to stop allowing the 15-percent ethanol blend to be pumped, claiming it could be damaging engines.

Rose White, spokeswoman for Triple-A-Iowa, says consumers don’t realize how harmful the fuel may be. “Five manufacturers are on record saying their warranties will not cover fuel-related claims caused by the use of E-15,” White says.

“Seven additional automakers have stated that the use of E15 may void warranty coverage.” Only certain vehicles are made to use the fuel. Of some 240-millon vehicles on the road, roughly 12-million are considered “flex fuel” capable. Ethanol supporters say E-15 is safe for virtually all post-2001 vehicles, based on extensive government-sponsored testing.

White says consumers need to be absolutely certain what type of fuel their vehicle can take. “To help prevent any problems, we’re urging consumers to carefully read the fuel pump labels and know your auto manufacturer’s fuel recommendations before using any type of new fuel blend,” White says. “Fuel recommenations are listed in in your vehicle’s owner’s manual.”

Iowa is the nation’s number-one ethanol producer with more than 40 plants operating. About 95-percent of the gasoline sold in the U.S.  is up to ten-percent ethanol. The E-15 fuel contains five-percent more ethanol.

After winning EPA approval several months ago, White says E-15 is still only sold in three Midwestern states. “The new E15 fuel was just released on the market and there are stations located in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska,” White says.

“There are 10 stations currently selling it but that number is expected to grow.” Eight of those stations are in Kansas, with one each in Iowa and Nebraska. The lone Iowa station is in Marion.  However, stations may also sell E-15 as an alternative fuel, usable only in flexible fuel vehicles — and there are stations that are doing that as well.

The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) today responded to Triple-A’s statement.  The executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA), Monte Shaw, says he’s disappointed by the attack on E-15 by Triple-A.

“Triple-A has actually I don’t think in the last 30 years ever said anything nice about ethanol, so this doesn’t exactly come as a big surprise. I don’t know if they get a bunch of funding from oil companies or what, but they’ve always just toed the oil company line. And there was nothing new here, this is retread anti E-15 attack points from big oil,” Shaw told Radio Iowa.

Shaw says he is fed up with the Triple-A attacks on ethanol blended fuels. “You know we’re disappointed, I cut up my Triple-A membership card today. We took a little picture and tweeted it out, because I’m tired of it,” Shaw says. Triple-A cites past attacks on E-15, saying it can harm engines.

Shaw says they can’t back that statement up. “It’s simply not true. Show me one study that shows that. Even the big oil study doesn’t actually show that. They say it does and they have a lot of money and they say it over and over and over again,” Shaw says. “But you have to remember this, E-15 is the most tested fuel in the history of the world by the E-P-A with the Department of Energy involved, and all that happened before it was approved.”

Shaw says it’s easy to see that E-15 is safe. “Look we all run these engines on E-10, this is five percent more, it’s not that big a deal,” Shaw says. He says Ford and G-M have already approved the fuel for their new cars and says it works in their other models, but they are not going to go back and redo their owner’s manuals.

He says Porsche even says the fuel works in their cars all the way back to 2001. Iowa is the leader in renewable fuels production.

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