the woodwork: the petroleum industry,
the trucking industry, school buses, the
mining industry,” he said. “Everybody
in the world seemed to be against us.”
The environmental community looked
favorably on biodiesel, but the proposed
blend rate of 2% didn’t generate much
enthusiasm. “If we’d have gone right to
B20, I think the Sierra Club would have
supported us,” Youngerberg said.
The state legislature finally passed the
first biodiesel standard in 2002, but then-
Gov. Jesse Ventura wouldn’t sign it. He
was supportive of biodiesel but reluctant
to implement a blending mandate and
he let the law take effect without his
signature.
Passage of the law did not trigger
implementation right away because the
new law required that in-state production
must first account for at least 50% of the
16 million biodiesel gallons that would be
required. Producers hustled
to bring 8 million gallons
of capacity online, and on
September 9, 2005, the
state finally enacted the B2
standard.
The plan was always to
ramp up from B2 to higher
levels, but it wasn’t until
Tim Pawlenty was elected
governor that biodiesel
adoption accelerated. He
signed bills that called for
B5 to be used in winter
months starting in 2009,
with B10 being used in
summer months as of 2012,
and B20 in summer as of
2015.
Even with those
legislative victories in hand,
the soybean association
had to continue fighting
off challenges. The new laws required
that the fuel delivery infrastructure be
biodiesel-ready in all parts of the state
before the new blend levels took effect.
The state had seen enough foot-dragging
by then. “Last year we had two
bills in the legislature to delay the B20
again, because the infrastructure guys
said they weren’t ready,” Youngerberg
explained. “It’s a credit to our governor
and legislature that they said, ‘Hey, it’s
been on the books since 2008,’ and they
basically rejected any attempt to delay
the implementation.”
Youngerberg sees the mandate as
more effective than alternative policy
approaches. “Mandates are hard to
get, but we have watched states with
incentive programs struggle at times with
funding. Some of those measures have
been repealed, or the state couldn’t fund
the program, so you’re always at the
2.4 Billion dollars in wages paid to
biodiesel industry workers annually
mercy of what the state budget is going
to do. With a mandate you don’t have to
deal with that, but you may have people
coming after it every year.”
He believes the sustainability
movement will create some good
opportunities for biodiesel in the years
ahead. “There are government fleets and
businesses that have sustainability and
emissions goals and biodiesel can help.
People are looking for ways to hit their
targets and there is only so much you can
do with E85,” he said.
Minnesota has achieved its biodiesel
miracle, and soybean acreage might
exceed corn acreage for the first time
ever in 2018. The soybean advocates can
never rest on their laurels though. “It
seems that in every legislative session,
you have to be at the state capitol
because there always are attempts to
delay it or push it off,” he said.
Biodiesel Success Stories 17