BIOMASS GROUPS are lining up behind a bill that Senators Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) and Frank Murkowski (R.-Alaska) introduced in the Senate in May to let section 45 tax credits be claimed on electricity generated from biomass.

Section 45 credits are credits of 1.7 cents a kilowatt hour for generating electricity from certain types of fuel. The only fuels that qualify currently are wind, poultry waste and “closed-loop biomass,” or plants grown specifically to be burned as fuel in power plants. The Lott-Murkowski bill would extend the credit to cover other kinds of biomass. However, the bill would not cover landfill gas, unsegregated municipal solid waste, or paper that is commonly recycled.