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Delay likely on B20 biodiesel mandate law
THE LAND, APRIL 11, 2014
By DAN LINEHAN Mankato Free Press ST. PAUL — In November 2011, state regulators admitted they weren’t ready for the move to require diesel fuel sold in the summer to contain 10-percent biodiesel made primarily from soybean oil.The Legislature had earlier aimed to move to socalled “B10” diesel fuel by 2012.
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But the commerce department wasn’t confident in its ability to conduct timely inspections of retail outlets and trucking facilities to ensure the new standard would be met. The lack of blending facilities in southwest Minnesota was also
partly responsible for the delay. Almost two years later, on Sept. 30, 2013, the state decided it was ready for the 10-percent mixture, called “biodiesel.” It had to give 270 days’ notice before each increase, so the implementation was set for July of this year. However, under the Legislature’s original bill, a bump to 20 percent was coming up fast, in 2015. That deadline would be extended by three years, to 2018, under a bill from North Mankato Rep. Clark Johnson. The basic problem with the 2015
deadline is similar to the reasons for the earlier delays: The state just isn’t ready, he said. The state’s soybean farmers association, Mankato-based Minnesota Soybean, supports the bill, said Mike Youngerberg, its senior director of field services. Another version of the bill, opposed by the association, would have delayed the 10percent transition and eliminate the 20percent move entirely. But it failed to pass a Senate committee last month. Johnson’s bill, too, has an uncertain future — it didn’t pass through its House committees before a March 21 deadline — but he believes it can still pass this year. In addition to delaying the B20 mandate, Johnson’s bill has two relatively minor changes. First, the mandate currently only applies to fuel sold between April and October. Biodiesel is more likely than regular fuel to turn to a gel in cold weather.The bill would change the last month of the summer mandate to September. “In discussions with a number of people, we agreed that October could be a little chancy, especially if it gets really cold during the harvest,” Youngerberg said. The bill also allows an exemption for companies that build generators to test them without biodiesel. The change was sought by MTU Onsite Energy, formerly Katolight, but is not specific to the Mankato company.
“We certainly want to recognize that people have the opportunity to sell equipment in other places and need to be able to test it,” Youngerberg said.Biodiesel has been a boon for soybean farmers in part because the industry has had excess soybean oil for some time, as the food industry has been moving away from transfats. (Oil is released as soybeans are crushed, and the remaining meal is used largely for livestock feed.) “It was a substantial market that moved away,” he said. “If it weren’t for biodiesel taking up that slack, we could have been in really dire straits.” There is opposition to the mandate, including from the trucking industry. Bruce Goodrich, owner of R & E Enterprises of Mankato, said he’s not opposed to purchasing biodiesel — he bought a 20-percent mixture last summer for the fleet — but he wants the ability to buy regular diesel when it’s cheaper. “They have a much better product today. It’s just that price is the biggest issue that we’re facing on a daily basis,” said Goodrich, who formerly sat on the state’s Biodiesel Task Force. Even a few pennies per gallon can make a big difference to a company that’s consuming 1,500 gallons a day.“That’s a lot of change at the end of the year,” he said. The Mankato Free Press is a sister publication to The Land under The ❖ Free Press Media.
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