Record Number of Organizations Signal Unified Support for Farm Bill
Energy Title
April 29, 2013 -- Today, more than 100 national, state and regional
organizations delivered a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate
Agriculture Committees urging them to adopt a new Farm Bill with robust
mandatory funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. The
letter was organized by the Agriculture Energy Coalition and 25x’25
Alliance, Environmental Law & Policy Center, and the National Farmers Union.
“Since 2009, thousands of direct and indirect jobs have been created or
saved in rural areas by the Farm Bill’s Energy Title programs that
benefitted almost 12,000 rural small businesses, agricultural producers, and
advanced biofuel refineries across the country,” the groups wrote.
“Continued growth in new agriculture, manufacturing, and high tech jobs are
at great risk without continued Federal investment.”
The groups also commended Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), Sen. Thad
Cochran (R-Miss.), Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Rep. Collin C. Peterson
(D-Minn.) for their leadership on the Farm Bill and pledged to work with
them to craft farm and energy policies that work for all of agriculture,
clean energy industries and rural America.
“In the midst of an economic downturn, the U.S. agricultural sector has
been remarkably resilient because American farmers have been willing to
diversify and innovate. The expansion of renewable energy, energy efficiency
and the emerging national bioeconomy have been vital components of that
diversification,” added Lloyd Ritter, Agriculture Energy Coalition
co-director.
Roger Johnson, president of the NFU, said, “America’s farmers and
ranchers are ready to lead the clean energy revolution. Farm Bill energy
title programs need to provide the tools to unleash this potential and open
new markets for farmers and ranchers.”
Brent Erickson, executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry
Organization’s (BIO) Industrial & Environmental Section, added, “Farm Bill
energy programs have a strong track record of helping to unlock investment
capital for new technology. While the programs remain unfunded, the U.S. is
losing economic growth and job opportunities to other countries.”
Farm energy programs have:
- Assisted 6,600 projects, employing 15,000 people, generate or save
more than 7.3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity – enough to power
680,000 U.S. homes annually;
- Backed advanced biorefineries in 9 states in negotiating $750
million in private construction loans;
- Helped more than 860 growers and landowners in 188 counties across
12 states put nearly 59,000 underutilized acres back into production;
- Improved consumer education and choice by labeling 900 certified
biobased products;
- Identified more than 25,000 biobased products made by 3,100
companies that employ nearly 100,000 people;
- Provided matching funding to 46 research and development projects in
24 states.
The AgEC is a broad membership-based consortium of organizations and
companies representing a broad spectrum of clean, renewable energy, energy
efficiency and bioproducts stakeholders. It includes members focused
on feedstock production and conversion technologies, rural economic
development and diversification, biofuels, products and power, and renewable
electricity production, environmental quality, and others. Coalition
members are committed to seeing a strong bi-partisan energy title in the
2012 farm bill that builds on the tremendous clean energy accomplishments
USDA has already realized and provides resources to USDA at a level that
enables them to continue and expand this important mission.
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