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Production Credits And Financing Incentives

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Investments by large chemical companies are focused on biobased facilities, but production credits and financing incentives are needed to create U.S.-based facilities. After a somewhat rocky start following the expiration of funding from the 2008 Farm Bill, the biobased products programs had a good level of support in the 2014 Farm Bill. The administrative regulatory rules are well developed, particularly for the Biorefinery Assistance program. Previously, this rule was strictly for advanced biofuels, whereas the current iteration expanded the sector to include biobased products and renewable chemicals. This has led to the development of a framework for assessing the biobased economy. However, this framework also requires that we make the public and private sectors be made aware of the fact that biobased products are not in stand-alone facilities; rather, they are part of a large supply chain that begins with biorefineries. In the past, if a biorefinery produced anything other than biofuels, it did not qualify for Farm Bill benefits, but this has changed. The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) is an extremely important part of the Farm Bill. For members of the farming community to grow cellulosic, non-food crops, they need assurance that they can make money by doing so. Some biomass crops require a planting lead-time of 1 to 5 years, and this program now provides an assured market with mandatory funding. The BCAP is also an emerging program. Cellulosic

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