Jul 28, 2008 8:22 pm US/Eastern
New Law Gives Boost To Biofuel Industry
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Governor Deval Patrick today signed into a law a bill that makes Massachusetts the first state in the nation to exempt non-food-based ethanol from state gasoline taxes.
Minutes after he put his signature on the bill, Kevin Bailey of Cambridge was several blocks down the street, pumping one hundred dollars of gasoline into the tank of a van he drives for a company in Brighton. "I'm willing to try anything and everything to bring gas prices down," said Bailey when asked what he thought about the new law.
It promotes the growth of an advanced biofuels industry which already has a significant cluster of biofuel firms at work in the state. "It won't pit fuel production against food production," said the Governor.
Companies such as Mascoma in Boston, where the Governor signed the biofuels bill, Sun Ethanol in Amherst are developing cellulosic ethanol made from organic waste such as that found in forests...a clean, renewable replacement for gasoline and home heating oil.
Back at the pump Kevin Bailey said, "whatever we can do to get off of foreign oil, I'm all for it. Cleaner air? Definitely for it without question."
The bill requires home heating oil and diesel fuel sold in Massachusetts to contain a minimum of two percent biofuel by 2010, and five percent by 2013.
Congressman William Delahunt, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee said, "we have to find a way to develop alternatives...we don't have a choice. It's that critical to the national security of the United States."
The governor says in addition to reducing cost, pollution and dependence on foreign oil, the bill he signed into law today could contribute 280 million to a billion dollars a year to the state's economy by creating jobs to develop and produce biofuels.
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