UNACCEPTABLE!

Committing yourself to anything takes a toll, but focusing that commitment on anything regarding changing the way people approach major problems is excruciating.

Case in point:

While in the background, the Copenhagen talks suffer a slow, ignominious death, the US Senate has announced that they will not vote on the House-passed, energy legislation that has served as the lifeline for the biodiesel industry since 2005, http://tiny.cc/qiGu1 .

This is UNACCEPTABLE! The biodiesel industry employs thousands of US workers while providing the US with a viable, renewable, sustainable fuel and helping to offset millions of tons of GHG and particulate emissions. Biodiesel is a critical piece of this nations alternative energy portfolio. However, because the biodiesel industry does not have 100 years of commercial evolution or trillions of dollars of infrastructure and capital, it is not yet able to function as economically competitively as the petroleum industry. AND I don't feel the need to apologize for this. The US oil and gas industry has received tens of billions of dollars in US government subsidies, R&D grants and other monetary support. The Biodiesel portion of the Renewable Fuel Tax Credit legislation cost this country less than $400 million in 2008.

The oil and gas industry, which booked over $130 billion in profits during 2008, doesn't need the taxpayer's support. The Biodiesel industry does. Without this critical energy legislation, we as a country are doomed to lose the biodiesel industry to China, Europe, Brazil and others. We are doomed to stay mired in the slow lane of energy evolution. We are doomed to further pollute our country. We are doomed to send our national treasure to those who do not support our way of life. We are doomed to pass onto our children a country that is weakened economically, environmentally and morally. And it is very likely that we may still be at war "protecting" the diminishing reserves of unsustainable energy sources that further foul our air and heat our planet.

This is UNACCEPTABLE. We elected these people in the Senate to enact change, and they have so sorely disappointed. They bicker; they pose; they do interviews, and they leave all of the important problems unchanged. They have a bill in front of them. It creates jobs. It incentives the private sector to take greater than normal risks to fund critical alternative energy R&D. It provides us a petroleum alternative. It reduces CO2 from our atmosphere, and it halves the amount of particulate matter that our children will have to breathe.

Again, the Senate has declared their intention not to vote on the bill before them. This is UNACCEPTABLE.

If you share my visceral frustration, I urge you to actively communicate it with your elected officials (list of Senators: http://tiny.cc/FS4XJ)

Oh yes, and on a very different note, Happy Holidays! This will likely be my last post of 2009. May 2010 burn brighter with much more locally and profitably produced biodiesel.

Mark J. Roberts
Springboard Biodiesel, LLC
The Cure for Diesel™