Eclectablog put up a nice (recommended) diary about the victory for the solar industry that went largely unnoticed in the recent tax legislation.
There was another "BFD for renewable energy" in that deal: the extension of the biodiesel tax incentive.
Why is this important? As you all know, petroleum prices crashed along with the rest of the economy a couple years back, and while there are obvious benefits to that development, it was horrible for alternative fuels in the United States.
Insult was added to injury when Congress failed to extend a $1/gallon tax incentive at the end of 2009. The incentive had been helping the biodiesel industry for 5 years, and as we progressed into 2010, without passage, more and more biodiesel companies shut their doors and packed it in.
With the President's signature on December 17th, this problem was corrected, and the tax incentive was passed retroactively in addition to being extended to the end of 2011. From the National Biodiesel Board press release:
"Experience has shown that the biodiesel tax incentive is an effective tool to encourage the displacement of foreign petroleum with a superior, domestically produced Advanced Biofuel," said Joe Jobe, National Biodiesel Board CEO. "Reinstatement of this proven incentive helps provide the policy framework needed to meet the nation’s renewable goals, and the NBB sincerely appreciates the bipartisan cooperation and support that made extension of this worthwhile incentive possible."
Biodiesel is a commercially viable, renewable, low carbon diesel replacement fuel that is widely accepted in the marketplace. The fuel meets an exact commercial fuel specification (ASTM D6751) and is the only domestically produced, commercial scale fuel that qualifies as an Advanced Biofuel under the Renewable Fuels Standard.
While I am a stakeholder in this industry, and thus this incentive, I am idealistically opposed to subsidies in general. It is my hope that enough biodiesel companies can "subsidy-proof" themselves in the time before this round of incentives expires, that we won't need it again in 2012. Nevertheless, for a company like mine, which is small, sustainability-oriented, and was scraping by to survive heading into 2011, this was incredibly welcome news. We have been working hard to make our biodiesel production plant more efficient, and until now, resources have been extremely limited. This will make a lot of improvements possible.