Search In The Media
 |
|
|
|
|
| In The Media Archive
|
|
|
|
|
|
| President Signs Transportation Bill with Biodiesel Provisions
|
Location: Blogs In The Media |
 |
| Posted by: Community Fuels |
8/10/2005 |
Bill funds research on engines using biodiesel and clean air programs
Bill funds research on engines using biodiesel and clean air programs
August 10, 2005
President Signs Transportation Bill with Biodiesel Provisions
Bill funds research on engines using biodiesel and clean air programs
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Today President Bush signed into law the Transportation Bill, which contains funding critical to ensure acceptance of biodiesel in future diesel engines.
Biodiesel, made from renewable resources like soybean oil and other fats and vegetable oils, can be used in any diesel engine with few or no modifications. It is cleaner burning, enhances domestic energy security and offers premium benefits to engines, such as lubricity.
“This program will benefit all Americans with increased energy security, reduced pollution and a more robust economy by making biodiesel more prominent in the future of our nation’s transportation sector,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of The National Biodiesel Board (NBB). “The industry thanks Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO), long-time biodiesel champion, for successfully securing critical funding for research on the new 2007 diesel engines and beyond to ensure that the clean diesel technology is certified as biodiesel-ready.”
Sen. Bond, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee, provided leadership with biodiesel resulting in an $8 million program for biodiesel research to be led by NBB, the nonprofit industry trade association that coordinates biodiesel research and public education.
In response to an Environmental Protection Agency ruling, engine companies are currently developing new clean diesel technology that will begin entering the market after 2007. The Transportation Bill funds, which will be leveraged with industry dollars, will give the biodiesel industry the opportunity to incorporate biodiesel into these engine testing programs and position biodiesel to be in the forefront of new diesel engine technology.
Other biodiesel highlights of the bill include the eligibility of biodiesel under the scope of the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) funding program for seven states; changes to the Clean Fuels Grant Program that specifically list biodiesel as eligible; a grant program for parks to increase their alternative transportation projects and an Alternative Fuels Study. Funds appropriated out of the Highway Trust Fund for CMAQ will start at $1.667 billion for FY2005; and gradually rise to $1.777 billion for FY2009.
Bush signed this legislation in Aurora, Illinois, with a trip planned to the nearby Caterpillar, Inc., plant.
Biodiesel, available at more than 450 retail pumps in the U.S. and used by hundreds of fleets, can be used in pure form, or blended with petroleum diesel. It significantly reduces most regulated emissions and is nontoxic and biodegradable. Biodiesel has the highest energy balance of any transportation fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1998 performed the prevailing life cycle study of the energy balance of biodiesel that found that for every one unit of fossil energy used in the entire biodiesel production cycle, 3.2 units of energy are gained.
# # #
|
|
National Biodiesel Board Press Release | |
| |
|
| Permalink |
Trackback |
|
|
|
|
|