Nebraska's energy office, now under the auspices of the governor, would become a separate agency renamed the Nebraska Office of Energy Independence, under legislation proposed Monday by Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton.
JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, January 13, 2008 6:00 pm
Nebraska’s energy office, now under the auspices of the governor, would become a separate agency renamed the Nebraska Office of Energy Independence, under legislation proposed Monday by Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton.
Dubas introduced three bills, for which she said she will request priority status, that are intended to promote Nebraska’s energy independence.
“It’s one of the most important policy issues,” Dubas said.
* The first bill (LB921) would create the independent agency to work with existing state boards, commissions and agencies that deal with energy issues. The office, an independent agency from 1977 to 1987, became a division of the Policy Research Office.
“We have the opportunity to make government more efficient,” she said.
Dubas said about 73 percent of the energy office budget in 2006-07 was funded by the federal government. Nebraska is one of six states that does not have an independent agency.
Gov. Dave Heineman was unavailable for comment Monday.
* Another bill (LB922) in Dubas’ energy package would create incentives for technology to use more materials — such as corn stalks, sweet sorghum and switchgrass — to produce ethanol. Incentives for research, demonstration projects and production would attract federal funding and private investment, she said.
Public power districts would be eligible for pilot projects.
Three excise taxes on industries that profit from ethanol development — oil, natural gas and railroads — will create about $10 million for projects, Dubas said.
Todd Sneller, Nebraska Ethanol Board administrator, said Nebraska has the opportunity to be a national leader — as it has been in the past 15 years or so — in ethanol development by creating a climate that encourages private investors to build biofuels plants in the state.
“It’s timely, politically smart and necessary to be proactive like we have been in the past,” Sneller said. “This is an ideal time if the state determines it’s an important part of economic development.”
University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher Ken Vogel and others have shown in a five-year study the biofuel potential of switchgrass, a native prairie grass. It produces more energy than is needed to grow, harvest and process it into ethanol.
By federal law passed in 2007, 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel will be blended into transportation fuel by 2022. Twenty-one billion gallons must come from sources such as switchgrass, corn leaves and stalks and sweet sorghum.
* A third bill (LB923) would protect landowners’ wind and solar energy rights by setting a 50-year limit for leases on land for the use of wind and solar power, and by giving developers five years to begin using the land for those projects, or the lease would expire. It also would disallow severing the wind rights from the land.
Dubas said state guidelines are needed to ensure landowners are protected and that they have a full understanding when wind or solar developers approach them about leasing their land.
Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.