A bill that would help finance the building of an ethanol pipeline from the Midwest to the East Coast is pending in the U-S House, co-sponsored by Republican Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry. Bruce Heine, spokesman for the Magellan Pipeline Company terminal, says the bill would guarantee 90-percent of the loan used to build an ethanol pipeline.
Heine says there is an existing loan guarantee under the Department of Energy, but they aren’t sure a renewable fuel pipeline would qualify for the program and it has a lower percentage guarantee. He says Terry’s bill would make it crystal clear that a renewable pipeline would qualify. Heine says Magellan wants to build the ethanol pipeline to save transportation costs, but needs the loan guarantee to get enough investors.
He says the project is well over three-billion dollars in scope and would run some 17-hundred miles from northwest Iowa into New York Harbor. Nebraska ethanol producers could truck their fuel to one of several hubs in Iowa. Heine says the 90-percent guarantee is important to investors. He says the loan guarantee would support the investment if there are changes that cut the 36-BILLION gallon requirement in the federal renewable fuels standard.
Terry co-sponsored the bill with Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell.