06/29/05 Ag cheers Senate energy bill passing

Farm and Ranch June 29, 2005 Agricultural organizations, commodity groups and backers of renewable fuels are cheering Tuesday's passage by the U.S. Senate of an energy bill. National Corn Growers Association President Len Corzine is one of them. Corzine: "We are very pleased with the strong bipartisan support that has been shown with the passage of the energy bill out of the Senate with the eight-billion RFS. It is a very strong signal. It is showing the political will that we have been talking about as far as the need for an energy bill and the need for renewable fuels in the U.S." The energy bill now heads to a House-Senate conference committee where comprehensive energy legislation has stalled in each of the last three years. Corzine: "We are in an extremely important time frame now as we are going to conference and as the conferees get named and they get to work there are still a number of issues to be resolved. So we cannot be complacent at this point." The Senate approved its energy bill by a final vote of 85 to 12. House and Senate conferees are expected to begin negotiations over the differences in their versions of the energy bill in July. A stumbling block in the past has been MTBE liability. The two chambers also have differing Renewable Fuels Standards in their bills. The House RFS is five billion gallons a year. The Senate eight billion. Those are the amounts of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel that refiners would have to blend into their petroleum fuels annually. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.