Tax credit stalled again (Senate Dems killing "green jobs")

The biodiesel tax credit will have to wait once again. Congress passed the small business bill shortly after returning from recess, but it did not include the extension as it previously had. Before the August recess, an earlier version of the bill contained the biodiesel tax extension proposed by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and was also approved by both the Democrats and the Republicans, but in a move to keep the bill alive, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., stripped all amendments attached to the bill. Upon return from recess, Reid issued a procedure known as an “amendment tree,” which prevents an open-amendment process, and essentially allows for a quicker passage. Grassley attempted to work through the “tree” by calling for the suspension of the procedure filed by Reid, but in a vote of 58-41, his attempt to add the biodiesel amendment via open-amendment was defeated.

Speaking before the Senate floor, Grassley urged the Senate to add the amendment. “It’s kind of ironic to me that we spend weeks on a bill that’s before the Senate, as legitimate as it is, to create jobs in small business when, quite frankly, there’s a lot of negative things going on here in the Congress of the United States that causes people to be laid off, or because of uncertainty, not be hired back.” As he has done for the past year, Grassley also highlighted the number of jobs already lost, 20,000, due to the tax credit’s expiration. “I have a solution,” he said, “that will create 20,000 jobs overnight,” adding, “that solution is to extend the biodiesel tax credit today.”

While the tax extension goes back to Washington, Grassley offered a new solution. “We need to pass the biodiesel tax credit separately.” In two previous attempts, that route has been unsuccessful, but it is something he said needs to be revisited. If the bill does have an opportunity to join another piece of legislation, the energy bill from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., offers the best chance for the extension along with several other renewable energy tax incentives, which are, at this point, included.

This is pretty hilarious, no matter what you think about green jobs or biodiesel. The point is, the $1/gallon tax credit expired at the end of 2009, and even with it, biodiesel production is barely profitable, it that. Without it, the industry is dying.

Because there are a lot of biodiesel plants in Iowa, Sen. Grassley has been the one pushing to re-institute the tax credit, but as you see here, Dingy Harry Reid was not only too busy passing Obamacare to take care of this for the past 9 months, but now he's playing procedural games in the Senate.

Next time you see a big Democrat, ask them why Harry Reid is fighting against Obama's "Green Jobs" initiative. Ask why Harry Reid's failure has led to the LOSS of 20,000 "green jobs" just this year. And ask them why the Democrat Party, with control of both House and Senate, can't get their own crap passed and is always blaming the Republicans for being obstructionists?

Like I said, it's pretty funny, aside from the fact that biodiesel doesn't make sense. So maybe Harry Reid should go out and campaign on the money he's saved us by killing green jobs in 2010!

LOL. Stories like this are further evidence of why we need to blow up the tax code and remove every President and Congressman who monkeys with this stuff. The ability to lobby and get yourself suckling at the federal teat in some way has turned the tax code into a rigged game.

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