Posted on 09/26/2008 5:39:42 AM PDT by thackney
An energy tax package Congress is cooking up this week may fry ConocoPhillips' production of diesel fuel from Tyson Foods' leftover animal fat.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips and Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson, the world's largest chicken, beef and pork processor, teamed up last year to use the oil company's existing refineries to produce renewable diesel fuel from animal fat.
Tyson sends beef tallow from its rendering plant in Amarillo to ConocoPhillips' refinery in nearby Borger, where it is used as a feedstock to make diesel fuel.
This year the partners have produced 4 million gallons of diesel fuel with this method. Eventually, the plan was to ramp up to about 175 million gallons annually, with ConocoPhillips to spend $100 million to upgrade its facilities to handle the animal fat.
The venture gets a $1-per-gallon federal tax credit for diesel produced in this manner.
But the House and Senate have been working on separate tax packages designed to encourage energy production from renewable sources. While the two packages differ, both bills would lower the tax credit to 50 cents per gallon.
That could kill the project.
...
The tax credit was first inserted into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 at the behest of House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., to help a renewable-energy company in his district.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
A subsidy is an attempt to allow one party to enjoy a benefit at the expense of another, always made possible because government has a monopoly on deadly force.
I don’t have to coerce a fellow citizen to pay for my biodiesel when normal diesel is available. I don’t need to be green and “sustainable” so much that I am willing to force my neighbor to pay for it. If biodiesel is so great, then the market will be willing to pay enough for it that someone will be willing to produce it.
Thats right. And the reason real diesel is so hight is there is a tax on it to pay for this stuff. Ain’t right i tell ya’.
Are they just lowering the subsidy on this and not the stuff made from soybeans?
If it’s not competative without subsidies, quit making it!
We can burn coal and oil which we cannot eat. We can also convert organic sources of hydrocarbons that are not suitable for human consumption into fuel.
The company that is converting meat scraps from processing Butterball turkeys into a biodiesel-type fuel in Carthage, Missouri once stated that the amount of hyrdrocarbons in our sewage sludge was greater than the hydrocarbons in our oil imports.
I want to remove all subsidies.
Recently Sen. Reid (D, NV) inserted language in a bill to continue the ban on developing our shale oil deposits. Bans like this are a form of subsidy- to foreign oil companies.
ConocoPhillips’ Tanner said:
“We're disappointed that Congress is willing to pass legislation that picks energy winners and losers and that fails to recognize the need for a variety of supplies from all sources, including alternatives, renewables as well as conventional oil and gas.”
I agree with you on subsidies.I saw thatReid move. Here is a guy that did NOT get his ass beat enough when he was young. He is such a liar and thief. He needs to be taken out of the Senate. I wish we could find a Palin type to run against him.
Yet another reason for pet foods costing more...
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