California Rep. Kiley Introduces Bill To Incentivize New Biomass Facilities

During the July 15 Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearing of the U.S. House of Representative Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) introduced H.R. 9746, the Biomass Facility Construction Act. This legislation would create a tax credit totaling 30% of the cost of construction for biomass facilities and allow them to concurrently receive the existing tax credit for energy produced via biomass.

“Our forests are overgrown and in desperate need of cleanup,” Rep. Kiley said in his remarks, which his office posted on YouTube. “A large contributor to this heightened wildfire risk is the buildup of limbs, leaves, shrubs, bushes, and dead wood, otherwise known as biomass. When biomass accumulates in our forests, it creates more fuel for wildfire.”

A large part of wildfire mitigation efforts is cleaning up this biomass, but contractors struggle with disposing of this material because there aren’t enough biomass facilities to bring it to. To help address the lack of facilities, this legislation provides a tax credit for biomass facility construction and energy production. This will lead to the construction of more biomass facilities, creating more access for contractors to offload this material and lower the costs of wildfire mitigation efforts.