Vilsack: Biodiesel credit essential for rural growth

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called Tuesday for an extension of the expired biodiesel tax-credit, which he termed vital for rural economic growth. "The plea was part of a larger platform of rural development initiatives that Vilsack unveiled today at the Agriculture Department's annual outlook conference," Allison Winter of Environment & Energy Daily reports.

"I want to express concern about the future of 2.2 million farmers and ranchers and the 50 million-plus people who live in rural America," Vilsack said. "We need to understand the value of rural America and begin paying more attention to it than we have in the past." The secretary called for the federal government to "get serious" about rural America by improving support for farmers, local food systems, conservation and renewable energy. Vilsack told Winter extending the tax credit was essential to promote the biofuels industry still in its infancy that could be spurred by renewable energy development. (Read more)

Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stripped the tax credit from a jobs bill that had been proposed by the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, Phillip Brasher of The Des Moines Register reports. Vilsack didn't insist that the credit be re-added to the jobs bill. "The key is getting it (the biodiesel credit) into a bill that’s a must-do," Vilsack told reporters. "I doesn’t necessarily have to be the jobs bill, but it has to be a must-do bill." (Read more)