Tough time for biofuels; ag building permits

Washington Ag Today May 20, 2009 Some biofuel producers in the Northwest are facing tough times. That huge biodiesel facility in Hoquiam operated by Imperium Renewables is shutdown. The owner hopes to get up and running again next year. Meanwhile, Pacific Ethanol has announced that its subsidiaries, which own four wholly-owned ethanol production facilities, have filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy to restructure debt. That includes plants in Oregon and Idaho. The marketing subsidiaries have not filed for bankruptcy. Legislation addressing permit fees for agricultural structures was passed by the Washington Legislature in the recent session but it did not include a 75 dollar cap on the fees. Jack Field of the Washington Cattlemen's Association explains what the bill signed by the governor, does do. Field: "They passed a bill to direct the state auditor to conduct a random audit of four counties on the western side of the state and four counties on the eastern side, both with diverse ag activity, to assess their permit fees and report back to the legislature. We felt at the time this was the very best we could have done. The counties support this. The ag groups involved supported this. We felt that just having the state auditor out there just might be the bully pulpit we need to have some of these counties that are charging the high fees take a closer look." Field cited an example of a west side county charging 45-hundred dollars in fees to site a barn. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.