The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and 66 renewable chemical producers are urging Congress to reauthorize the Farm Bill’s Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical and Biobased Manufacturing Assistance Program (Section 9003) and remove any restrictions that may impede the development of stand-alone manufacturing facilities.
To drive home their point, BIO and the chemical producers recently drafted a letter to the House and Senate committees on agriculture urging the reauthorization program, a BIO release said.
“Renewable chemicals can also generate a high value relative to transportation fuels, which will provide economic stability for the construction of the entire biorefinery,” the letter stated. “Therefore, these renewable chemical stand-alone manufacturing facilities need to be constructed first and operated with innovative technologies to build the economic value to support advanced biofuels, which is a component in the biorefinery.”
Bio and the producers believe that federal policy support will allow renewable chemical companies, both startups and mature producers, to build manufacturing facilities in the United States to improve the country’s renewable energy industry, reduce its reliance on foreign oil and create thousands of U.S. jobs, the release said.
“Several renewable chemical startups and mature chemical companies are waiting to build their first-of-a-kind manufacturing facilities in the United States from homegrown biomass and technologies and will do so with the proper federal policy support," the letter said according to the release.
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