President shows support for renewable energy during visit to plant in Macon
MACON, Mo. — Speaking from a platform next to a loader full of corn, President Obama told a crowd at the POET Biorefining facility that renewable fuels are an important part of the nation’s energy future.
“Renewable, homegrown fuels are a key part of our strategy for a clean energy future — a future of new industries, new jobs in towns like Macon and new independence,” Obama said.
Obama’s words of encouragement were music to the ears of Grover Gamm, a Ewing farmer and treasurer of the POET board of directors.
“His comments there today dispelled quite a bit of wonderment in the biofuels industry,” Gamm said. “It seems like there’s been a big push for wind and solar, and we really hadn’t gotten those kind of words from him out in public (supporting ethanol or biodiesel).”
Several months ago, Congress allowed tax credits to lapse for biodiesel facilities. Tax credits for ethanol operations need to be renewed this year, or “it will devastate the ethanol industry,” Gamm said.
U.S. tariffs on Brazilian ethanol also are being challenged and could undercut domestic ethanol production.
Steve Burnett, general manager of POET, took Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on a brief tour of the facility. POET opened 10 years ago. It now employs 45 employees and produces 46 million gallons of ethanol a year.
The Recovery Act included $800 million in funding for ethanol production. The goal is to triple America’s biofuels production in the next 12 years.
“I didn’t just discover the merits of biofuels like ethanol when I first hopped on the campaign bus. I believe in their potential to contribute to our rural economies and our clean energy economy,” Obama said.
The POET Biorefining visit was reported as the first visit by a sitting president to an ethanol production plant. It was the kind of image Obama wanted to cultivate with the two-day tour of Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Just north of the facility, a mixed crowd was on hand for the president’s arrival and departure. Some members waved or held U.S. flags. Others held signs expressing their opposition to Obama’s political stances.
The rural independents who don’t fully support or oppose him are the ones who Obama wanted to reach.
-Doug Wilson
