Domestic Fuel

A lower percentage of ethanol required to be blended with gasoline in Brazil is resulting in lower ethanol sales, according to the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA).

UNICA reports that ethanol sales by mills in the South-Central region totaled 1.29 billion liters in January, a drop of 32.32% compared to the 1.90 billion liters sold during the same period in 2011. Of this year’s total for January, 1.24 billion liters remained in the domestic market and only 42.44 million liters were exported.

January anhydrous ethanol sales totaled 483.91 million liters, down from 584.38 million liters during the same period of last year. As for hydrous ethanol, 760.40 million liters were sold during the month, down sharply from 1.23 billion liters during the same period of the 2010/2011 harvest.

The drop in anhydrous ethanol sales is the result of a cut in the amount of ethanol blended with gasoline which went into effect in 2011, according to UNICA Technical Director Antonio de Padua Rodrigues. “If the blend level had remained at 25%, sales in January 2012 would have been greater than in January of 2011,” he added.

Earlier this week, the Senate compromised on some ethanol legislation that would eliminate the ethanol blenders tax credit (VEETC) at the end of this month. The agreement also eliminates the ethanol tariff on July 31, 2011, five months ahead of the original expiration date of December 31, 2011. The bipartisan Ethanol Reform and Deficit Reduction Act was submitted by U.S. Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Amy Kobuchar (D-MN) and sought to transition to a more sustainable model of renewable fuel incentives.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) was pleased with the news and has been lobbying for several years to eliminate the ethanol tariff. Brazil eliminated its ethanol tariff early last year. Leticia Phillips, UNICA’s representative in North America said, “As the world’s top producers of ethanol, the U.S. and Brazil should lead by example in creating a free market for clean, renewable energy.”

Phillips noted that last month, the U.S. Senate voted to end ethanol subsidies and UNICA looks forward to continue to work with Congressional leaders to accomplish that goal.

“We thank Senator Feinstein for her leadership on this important issue and urge Congress to pass it as soon as possible,” continued Phillips. “Ending the 30-year-old tariff on imported ethanol will help lower fuel prices and provide Americans with greater access to clean and affordable renewable fuels like sugarcane ethanol.”

She concluded, “Consumers win when businesses have to compete in an open market, because competition produces higher quality products at lower costs. The same principle holds true for renewable fuels. Allowing other alternative fuels like sugarcane ethanol to compete fairly in the U.S. will save Americans money, cut dependence on Middle East oil and improve the environment.”

Ironically, earlier this week Bloomberg reported that the Brazilian government is considering lowering the country’s ethanol requirement from 25 percent to 18 percent due to several back-to-back reduced sugarcane harvests.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) recently launched a new website to promote “clean solutions from sugarcane.”

SugarCane.org was launched during the 2011 Ethanol Summit in São Paulo, Brazil. “We decided to launch this new site to share knowledge and information with a growing global community of people who want to know how their food and energy choices affect our environment and people worldwide,” said UNICA’s President and CEO, Marcos Jank. “Today, sugarcane is the basic input for a diverse and growing range of value-added products, including sugar, ethanol, bioelectricity, bioplastics, bio-hydrocarbons, among others being developed. Sugarcane by-products are efficient and sustainable solutions that can replace gasoline, diesel, plastics and beyond that. Just imagine. Solutions from sugarcane,” Jank said.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) today announced the appointment of David Thomas as Chief Lobbyist and Leticia Phillips as Representative for North America, both based at UNICA’s Washington, D.C. office. They replace Joel Velasco, who left UNICA in January to become Senior Vice-President for External Relations at California Biotech Company Amyris.

A seasoned strategist with almost two decades of experience in the Washington public policy arena, Thomas is a former Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for Vice-President Al Gore and Director of Congressional Relations at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). More recently, he served as Chief of Staff for U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. As a Senior Strategist with Washington lobbying firm Mehlman, Vogel, Castanetti, Thomas was directly involved with UNICA’s 2010 campaign against U.S. tariffs on imported ethanol.

In her continuing role overseeing Institutional and Government Affairs for North America since 2008, Phillips will now lead UNICA’s efforts as its Representative for North America on a variety of fronts in which UNICA is currently engaged.

Carolina Lessa will remain in her role as coordinator of communications and media relations efforts in North America.

Source: UNICA news release

Ethanol exports from Brazil could drop by as much as 18% this season compared to last year, according to the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA).

UNICA is expecting a slight increase in ethanol production this year, however. “Ethanol production should reach 25.51 billion liters in the 2011/2012 season, a 0.52% increase compared to the last harvest, when the total reached 25.37 billion liters,” the organization reports. According to UNICA’s Technical Director, Antonio de Padua Rodrigues, increased ethanol production combined with a drop in exports will result in an increase of almost 500 million liters of the biofuel in the domestic supply. “However, this increase in ethanol supply for domestic use is lower than the expected growth in demand, given accelerated sales of flex vehicles,” he said.

Of the 25.51 billion liters of ethanol expected in the new season, 17.21 billion will be hydrous ethanol and 8.30 billion will be anhydrous ethanol. This volume of anhydrous ethanol is sufficient to meet the 25% blend with gasoline, even if a smaller share of the flex fuel fleet uses hydrous ethanol as expected, as consumers that own flex-fuel choose gasoline because of pricing.

The forecast for the 2011/2012 Brazilian sugarcane harvest calls for 568.50 million tons, up 2.11% compared to last year. The country is expecting an overall recovery in agricultural productivity after a lengthy dry spell, but UNICA is projecting that average productivity of the total sugarcane area for the 2011/2012 harvest will decline compared to the previous harvest, due to factors including the aging of cane fields and a reduction in the amount of cane that was not processed in the prior harvest and therefore has been growing for nearly two years.

In the great tradition of saving the best for last, the 2011 National Ethanol Conference concluded with a lively panel discussion featuring global ethanol leaders.

Those on the panel were (LtoR) George Fitch, Director of the Caribbean Basic Ethanol Producers Association; Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association; Marcos Jank, president and CEO of Brazil’s UNICA; Robert Vierhout, Secretary General of ePURE, European Renewable Ethanol; and Gordon Quaiattini, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.

Moderator Bliss Baker with the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance started the session off with a bang by asking Jank his opinion on the United States tariff on imported ethanol. “I’d like to say ‘happy 30th anniversary’ to RFA,” Jank responded, turning his attention to Dinneen on his right. “I was questioning myself, if after 30 years the industry is not now a mature industry, which means if the industry still needs subsidy or not, still needs a tariff or not.”

Noting that the U.S. is now the largest ethanol producer in the world, Jank said to Dinneen, “I hope that in three years you will be a free trader as we are. It’s time to eliminate the tariff, it’s time to compete.”

The Caribbean’s Fitch challenged Jank’s position on the tariff issue and encouraged Brazil to avoid taking action against the U.S. tariff with the WTO. “The tariff is not WTO actionable,” Fitch said. “So what you’re doing is creating trade hostilities that you don’t need to create.” He suggested instead that Brazil continue marketing ethanol to the U.S. through the Caribbean Basin. “I would think that UNICA might want to use this as an initiative on their part,” he said. Brazil now can have their own Caribbean Basin Initiative to help countries not as advanced as they are … as opposed to getting into what could be a very nasty trade fight by going after the tariff.”
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“The Ethanol Summit has been confirmed for June 6th and 7th at Sao Paulo’s Grand Hyatt Hotel (Brazil) hosted by the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) and Scania, a Swedish heavy truck manufacturer that has developed and manufactured ethanol powered buses and trucks, has signed on as a major sponsor for the event. This year’s theme is “Solutions for a Low-Carbon Economy.”

“We will further broaden the debate, bringing to the table a growing variety of cane by-products that contribute directly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, making sugarcane and ethanol increasingly important tools in the pursuit of the so-called low-carbon economy,” said UNICA President Marcos Jank.

The summit, held every two years, will bring together leading business executives, experts, investors, NGO representatives and government officials from Brazil and other countries, whose expertise and activities are directly relevant to the Brazilian and global sugar and ethanol industries. The event will feature nearly 120 speakers in four plenary sessions with 15 panels, along with two major ceremonies, parallel meetings and side events.

“Brazil has taken a leading role in global alternative energy discussions. UNICA has been working to create awareness and disseminate information on renewable energies,” added Jank. “New and emerging technologies and applications can benefit both developed and emerging economies, because energy affects the entire planet. “The Ethanol Summit is a key channel of global dissemination for both the impressive results achieved in Brazil and the prospects of this success being repeated in many other parts of the world.”

Registration for the 2011 Ethanol Summit are now open at www.ethanolsummit.com.br.

The Brazilian sugarcane harvest is in full swing and sugarcane crushing in the South-Central region totaled 2.44 million tons in the second half of December 2010, a 76.39 percent drop from the same period in 2009. This raises the total since the beginning of the 2010/2011 harvest to 555.00 million tons. In early January, only 21 mills were operating in the region and between now and the end of the official harvest on March 31st, numbers are only expected to change slightly.

In the second half of December, sugar production reached 67.48 thousand tons, adding to the 33.46 million tons produced from the beginning of the harvest to December 31, 2010. That total is 18.22 percent more than the amount produced during the same period of 2009, and 16.82 percent more than the final tally for the entire 2009/2010 harvest.

The country’s ethanol production reached 142.7 million liters in the second half of December. Of this total, 53.24 million liters were anhydrous and 89.23 million were hydrous ethanol. Since the harvest began through the end of December 2010, total ethanol production was 25.27 billion liters, which was an increase up 10.34 percent compared to the same period in 2009. Of this volume, 17.87 billion liters were hydrous ethanol – a 6.25 percent increase from last year, and 7.41 billion liters were anhydrous ethanol, an increase of 21.64 percent from last year.

When you take into account the current harvest is near completion, and compare overall production at the end of December with final numbers for last year’s harvest, there were increases of 2.41 percent in total cane crushing, 16.82 percent in sugar production and 6.71 percent in ethanol production. However, when you only factor ethanol and sugar into the equation, the increase is 11.10 percent.

Sales of ethanol by mills in the South-Central region totaled 2.22 billion liters in December, a 2.64 percent increase compared to the previous month. Of that, 108.33 million liters were exported and 2.11 billion liters went to the domestic market. On the domestic front, 1.50 billion liters of hydrous ethanol were sold in December, a 2.44 percent increase compared to December of 2009. Anhydrous ethanol sales totaled 608.66 million liters against 524.39 million liters in 2009, an increase of 16.07 percent.

During a meeting held on Wednesday Jan.12 with members of the various government organizations, it was determined that there would be continuous monitoring of the ethanol market during the inter-harvest period, with regular meetings between the government and market agents.

“Given the latest figures, it became evident that the current productive scenario offers total peace of mind as far as supplies of ethanol for the domestic market. Mills in South-Central Brazil should produce about two billion litters more ethanol in the current harvest year and, so far, exports are down by more than a billion liters compared to the previous harvest,” said UNICA’s Rodrigues. The numbers show the amount of ethanol available for domestic needs should increase by approximately three billion liters, he added.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) announced today that Joel Velasco, the organization’s Washington, DC-based Chief Representative for North America, is leaving the position he has held since 2007, to join Amyris, Inc., as Senior Vice-President, External Relations.

“Joel has provided UNICA with wise counsel, effective strategy and solid results. We wish him well at Amyris and will continue cooperating in the future, as we pursue what will often be common objectives,” said UNICA CEO Marcos Jank. Velasco will remain an informal advisor to UNICA on matters related to U.S. biofuels policy.

“I have been honored to represent such a transformative industry at a particularly pivotal period. I am confident that our international successes over these last three years will yield dividends not only to UNICA member companies but to the communities they serve for years to come. As I embark on a new challenge with Amyris, I look forward to supporting UNICA’s trailblazing work to promote an even more vibrant sugarcane industry in Brazil and beyond,” added Velasco.

Amyris is an integrated renewable products company based in Emeryville, California. Subsidiaries include Amyris Brasil S.A., a majority-owned Brasilian company and Amyris Fuels, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary for U.S. fuels distribution capabilities.

With Velasco’s departure, UNICA’s activities in Washington will be carried out by Leticia Phillips and Ana Carolina Lessa. The organization’s international activities will continue to be overseen by UNICA’s Senior Advisor for International Affairs, Geraldine Kutas, based in Brussels.

While many in the domestic U.S. energy industry were giving sighs of relief yesterday after the Senate passed the one-year extension of the tax package, others were not so calm. Two organizations in particular that are not happy with the renewal of the biofuel portion of the tax package were the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) and Friends of the Earth. On Monday, in Angry Sparks Turning to Flames Over Ethanol Tax Package, I wrote about how UNICA was asking for Brazil to initiate dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization if the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) and the tariff were passed. They both were.

UNICA President Marcos Jank reiterated yesterday, “Despite calls from across the country – including nearly 100 newspaper editorials, over 80,000 letters from clean energy advocates, and opposition from a bipartisan group of Senators and one of the broadest coalitions imaginable – the U.S. Senate voted today to extend the subsidies and trade protection for U.S. ethanol producers for one more year.

He continued, “While we were disappointed with today’s outcome, and the expected rubber stamp by the U.S. House of Representatives, we know that the days of ethanol subsidies and trade protection are near the end, either because they will expire at the end of 2011 or as a result of litigation at the World Trade Organization (WTO).”

Friends of the Earth (FOE)  is also floored that the Senate could so blindly pass the $860 billion tax package. They are an environmental organization that has been vocal against corn-based ethanol in the U.S. and all biofuel development global. In a statement released yesterday, Ben Schreiber, FOE’s climate and energy tax analyst said, “Friends of the Earth is deeply dismayed that the Senate followed President Obama down the path of capitulation to bad economic and environmental policies.

He continued, “The Senate bill has been larded up with tax cuts to support dirty and dangerous energy sources, including petroleum, coke, natural gas and corn ethanol. The worst examples of environmentally destructive handouts are a forty-five cents per gallon tax credit to corn ethanol via the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) and a fifty cents per gallon tax credit for the production of liquid coal.”

“Speaker Pelosi and members of the House must prevent unfair and irresponsible giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and corporations from moving forward. Otherwise, this Congress will leave behind a legacy of wasteful spending that could inhibit our government’s ability to function in the public interest,” concluded Schreiber who in this statement did not offer up what ‘fair and responsible’ giveaways or spending might be.

Unfortunately, this debate is far from over. The extension is one-year only and all renewable energy industries will be back in Washington for the 112th Congress beginning talks on what, if any, energy incentives will look like in 2012 and beyond.

As the domestic ethanol industry’s confidence climbs that their ethanol tax incentives will see at least one-year extensions, angry sparks are turning into flames from those opposed to the move. One group in particular that has voiced its opposition to the passing of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) as well as the ethanol tariff is the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) who had been claiming for years that American ethanol policy is designed to keep American ethanol in and foreign ethanol out.

Here is what we know. For more than 20 years, up until 2001, there was “parity” between the two policies, and then that changed when the tariff was set at 54 cents and VEETC at 53 cents. Today, VEETC is at 45 cents and the tariff remains at 54 cents. What is unclear, is where the VEETC will stand should it receive a one-year extension. There was talk that it would be lowered to 36 cents; yet in the current package it remains at 45 cents. Then this morning rumors began en force that there is a possible Senate amendment that would lower the VEETC to 36 cents.

As Joel Velasco, UNICA’s Chief Representative of North America and the author of the blog “Sweeter Alternative” writes, the proposal to reduce the VEETC to 36 cents would in essence, double the difference between the tax credit and the tariff (i.e., the effective trade barrier benefiting corn ethanol) from nine to 18 cents. He notes that the tariff was originally imposed by President Jimmy Carter “to offset the tax credit so that America does not subsidize foreign producers,” but finishes by arguing, “Now some in Congress are trying to change the rules by making the tariff a true trade barrier rather than a subsidy offset.”

For the past year, UNICA has been arguing that true parity is to let both VEETC and the tariff expire and let the free markets take over (Brazil removed its tariff earlier this year). But with the movement in the Senate actually looking like it might go somewhere, UNICA is no longer sending out sparks – they are throwing flames.

“For 30 years, the United States has been subsidizing corn ethanol and imposing trade barriers on imported ethanol. Over the last three years, UNICA has sought to engage with various stakeholders in the United States in an effort to reform U.S. ethanol policy in a way that reduces trade distortions and would avoid trade conflict, said UNICA President & CEO, Marcos Jank. “However, after being rebuffed twice – first in the Bush Administration’s 2008 Farm Bill and now apparently during the Obama lame duck negotiations – it is clear that the United States is not committed to open and fair trade in clean energy, particularly ethanol.”

Jank continued, “Consequently, UNICA will urge the Brazilian government to initiate dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization (WTO) as soon as this legislation passes Congress and is signed by President Obama. We will have exhausted all options to resolve our differences through informal dialogue and the U.S. legislative process. It will then be time for the WTO to resolve this matter in accordance with applicable international rights and obligations.”

The world will be watching to see if the flames turn into fire as the 112th Congress begin in January 2011.

After defeating a compromise measure proposed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) to extend the Bush tax cuts only for the middle class, the talk on Capitol Hill is now turning to a deal that would keep all of the tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment benefits.

Baucus had proposed a compromise amendment late Thursday that would have continued unemployment benefits through January 2012 while extending the tax cuts to those making $250,000 or less. The measure would have also extended the blenders tax credit for ethanol for one year at a rate of 36 cents per gallon while maintaining the 54 cents per gallon tariff on ethanol imports and reinstated the expired $1-per-gallon production tax credit for biodiesel and biomass diesel and the small agri-biodiesel producer credit of 10 cents per gallon through 2011.

Domestic ethanol organizations supported the Baucus measure when it was proposed last week. “Senator Baucus’s approach is a good one, recognizing the importance of this investment and providing some market stability as good faith efforts to responsibly reform ethanol tax policy continue,” said Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen. Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis commented that the Baucus proposal for extending the ethanol tax credits was “not as high and as long as we had hoped” but that such an extension would “provide certainty in the market and give Congress the opportunity to consider longer term solutions.”

Joel Velasco with the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) was not so supportive, especially of keeping the ethanol tariff at its present rate while lowering the blenders tax credit. “The ethanol import tariff shouldn’t exist at all. But if it must, the tariff should be a direct offset of the tax credit that protects Americans from subsidizing foreign production, not a punitive trade barrier,” Velasco said.

The White House reportedly wants to see a deal done this week in Congress to extend the unemployment benefits that ran out for many last week and may be prepared to accept an extension of the tax cuts as well in order to make that happen.

The California Air Resources Board yesterday agreed to update the land use change and other indirect effects of biofuels production under their Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS).

The board is asking for updates to the land use values for corn ethanol, sugarcane ethanol, and soy biodiesel, and other feedstocks by spring of 2011 to implement the LCFS, which currently penalizes corn ethanol to the extent that it would not be approved for use in the state, while sugarcane ethanol meets the standard.

Joel Velasco with the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) says they are pleased that California is reviewing the science of indirect emissions from biofuels production. “As we stated in our comments during the LCFS rulemaking process, ‘the science used in determining these market-mediated, indirect impacts is quite limited and highly uncertain.’ The Board’s decision today to ‘update the land use change and other indirect effects values in the Spring of 2011′ for a variety of biofuel feedstocks, including sugarcane, ensures that as the science evolves, so will the regulations.”

The U.S. ethanol industry has challenged the constitutionality of California’s LCFS and expressed concerns that the state will not be able to serve the needs of motorists without corn ethanol. “We hope to bring some sanity to that debate,” said Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president Bob Dinneen. “We hope that California makes some changes to the program or there’s a train wreck waiting to occur there because consumers won’t have enough fuel for their vehicles.”

The updates are likely to mean the current ILUC penalty for corn ethanol will be cut by at least half by the spring of 2011, using ILUC modeling from Purdue University. However, California’s LCFS is supposed to be implemented in January 2011, which could complicate and confuse the issue, according to Dinneen. “Why would CARB begin a program on Jan. 1 that is based on ILUC numbers that they now freely admit are wrong and inflated? They have better science and they should use it now—before the 2011 compliance year beings,” said Dinneen.

Growth Energy spokesperson Chris Thorne also commented on the action taken by CARB. “What the Expert Working Group and the CARB staff are showing us with these decisions is that there are grave doubts about the entire scheme of indirect land use change, which penalizes clean fuels in America for the pollution created by foreign producers,” Thorne said.

“As the dust settled on a midterm election that significantly altered the political landscape, voters sent a clear message that cutting the deficit and ending wasteful government spending should be top priorities for Congress. Americans will be watching closely to see if lawmakers got the message. Eliminating ethanol subsidies and trade protection would be a good way to indicate that they did,” writes Joel Velasco, UNICA Chief Representative of North America in response the the Mid-Term Election results that took place across the U.S. on November 2, 2010.

Similar to two years ago when President Obama was elected, Americans asked for change. Only this time, its wasn’t Democrats they were asking to help make it. Republicans made a strong gain in this election with their promises of balancing the budget, cutting wasteful spending, fixing the economy, and creating jobs.

Along these same lines, UNICA has been heavily campaigning in recent months to end the ethanol tariff and open up the marketplace for ethanol. They argue that this will help save Americans money at the pump, create greater diversity, and provide access to cleaner alternatives like sugarcane ethanol.

Velasco continued in his blog post, “Democrats and Republicans have vowed to work together on this issue, hinting that the days of $6 billion per year in ethanol tax credits could be over when they expire on December 31. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee told Bloomberg News that “[t]here are folks who ideologically don’t want to see the tax credit,” noting that the election results were sure to strengthen that viewpoint.”

The U.S. corn ethanol industry may be getting the message on competition and the need to remove trade barriers on cleaner, more affordable energy,” writes Velasco. “During a conference call with reporters this morning, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association [Bob Dinneen] reiterated his support for setting the ethanol tax credit and import tariff at the same amount – a concept industry insiders refer to as “parity”.

Velasco concluded, “The next several weeks will be an important litmus test in determining whether or not Congress has truly heard the American people. Tough decisions will be need to be made to cut the deficit and restore fiscal responsibility and bipartisanship to Washington. Ethanol policy is a good place to start.”

The ethanol industry praised USDA Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack today and expressed gratitude for his department’s commitment to fulfill the administration’s goal of transitioning to renewable energy. This morning at the Press Club in DC, Vilsack announced a series of measures aimed at supporting the rural economy and reducing dependence on foreign oil that include support for corn-based ethanol.

“The Obama Administration has shown strong leadership on the issue of domestic biofuels, putting forward a vision that recognizes the importance of the existing industry and the potential of new technologies. Domestic ethanol production is one of the few bright spots in a gloomy economic forecast, providing tens of thousands of jobs in hundreds of rural communities all across the country,” said Renewable Fuels President and CEO, Bob Dinneen. “By expanding the scope of American ethanol production to include new feedstocks from grasses to wood waste to algae, the industry can extend the benefits seen in rural America to every corner of the country.

As part of the announcement, Vilsack said the USDA would reinstate the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Another important initiative would encourage the installation of blender pumps.

“If we truly want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, create jobs and improve our environment, we need to ensure that our entire vehicle fleet and fuel infrastructure are ready to use expanded U.S. ethanol production. Each additional flex fuel vehicle and blender pump gives consumers the option of filling up with clean, renewable ethanol to create a more secure energy future for this country,” remarked Tom Buis, the CEO of Growth Energy.

While the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) support all the initiatives laid out in USDA’s plan, they also called for the passage of the soon to expire tax credit.
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