Arizona Biodiesel Board's policy recommendations

The Tuscon-based Arizona Biodiesel Board (ABB) appears to have done some careful thinking on the legislative policy front. They describe their list of top policy priorities for the AZ state legislature here; very roughly summarized, they are:

• Eliminate road tax remittance requirements for WVO-based biodiesel homebrewers
• Allocate state funding for alternative feedstock research
• Create an investment tax credit for feedstock cultivation on tribal lands
• Mandate that all diesel fuel sold in Arizona contain at least 5% biodiesel
• Include info on alternative fuels with MVD registration renewals
• Tax incentives for the creation of biodiesel distribution infrastucture

There are some very thoughtful ideas here, that I'd like to explore in more depth in future posts. But one thing that strikes me is that there are no "legislative showstoppers" on the list -- that is, judging from this list I would conclude that there are no state-level legislative barriers that are fundamental obstacles to biofuels development -- i.e., ultimately this seems like a list of "nice-to-haves" (perhaps very nice to have) and not "must haves."

I understand that there have been some state-level showstoppers in the past. This article [alt. link here] describes (among other things) that state legislative action was necessary to "classify biodiesel and ethanol as motor fuels, making it legal for them to be sold in Arizona."

Certainly the state is not the only relevant regulating entity, though. We have seen an example where an innovative biofuel company was stymied by local zoning regulations -- more on this soon. And there is no doubt that federal policy has a massive impact on biofuels (one small example: nobody sells B100 in the Valley; the best you can do is B99, because of federal tax policy).

Navigating through this complex policy environment is one critical piece of the local biofuels puzzle.