On Monday, after months of debate, negotiations, veto threats, and various grass-roots campaigns, the conferees for the 2008 Farm Bill revealed their compromise product. This year’s edition of the legislation has a greatly expanded energy portfolio, designed to put American farms and farmers at the cutting edge of the newly robust biofuels marketplace. Some of the highlights for the Title IX Energy Programs are:

• Authorizes $1 billion for new investments into energy related feedstocks;
• $320 million in loan guarantees for biorefineries;
• Creates a new program, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which will provide $250 million in grants and loans for agricultural producers and rural businesses to purchase renewable energy systems;
• Authorizes $120 million for additional biomass research and feedstock development;
• Funds the Bioenergy program at $300 million which would provide incentives to expand production of biofuels;
• Creates a Biomass Crop Assistance Program;
• Creates a sugar-to-ethanol program.

Interestingly, the Farm Bill was unveiled the same week that committees on both sides of the Capitol are holding hearings examining the relationship between biofuel production and food and commodity prices. The Senate Foreign Relations committee meets on Wednesday morning at 9:30am to evaluate the issues, while the House Agriculture Committee will meet on Thursday.

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