02/16/07 Smith confirmed

Randy Smith is the newest member of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The district court judge from Pocatello was unanimously confirmed yesterday by the US Senate. Two of his staunch supporters, Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig say Smith will 'serve Idaho well' and will be a federal judge who 'understands judges interpret law, they don't create it." Both of those senators are also backing efforts to expand the ethanol industry through cellulosic production. Iogen Corporation has been looking at a site near Shelley, one in Canada and another in Germany as the site of such an ethanol plant. All they need is a loan guarantee from a government. HLADK "At least there's action going on in the United States but its slow. There's precious little action in Canada right now, there's nothing in the pipeline in our system right now." Iogen's Morris Hladk says his company has contracts with more than 300 southeast Idaho growers for the 25 million dollars worth of wheat and barley straw needed to produce the ethanol. The Department of Energy opened an office last summer to provide the loan guarantees for this project and others. However with only one employee, 100 applications and no staff to assess the projects, nothing has happened. That could change shortly because Congress may appropriate up to four billion dollars for loan guarantees this fiscal year, plus the money to operate the program. But don't look for any applications to be approved before next September at the earliest. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott