Would You Make 3 Phone Calls to Get Development Capital?

By CJ Evans, Co-Founder, Alternative Fuels & Chemicals Coalition & Managing Director, Project Financing Assistance
Special to The Digest

Three phone calls. That’s all it takes. Just a few minutes of your time. One person speaking up. Calling their Representative and two Senators. Voicing support for an initiative that is underway. That’s how a $500 million development capital grant program can be put in place … as early as this fall. That’s how every initiative that the Alternative Fuels & Chemicals Coalition (AFCC) is pursuing (see below) will be enacted.

Three phone calls. A few minutes of your time.

Everything you need to know about the development capital grant program …what to do and say when you make your phone calls … what else you can do to advocate for creation of the development grant program … and the talking points you can use … is available in three articles that were published in Biofuels Digest a few weeks ago:

• Going for the Benjamins: Here’s How Access to Development Capital Can be Improved
• Lobbying Tips: You Can Help Expand Access to Development Capital & Federal Funding to Advance Game-Changing Bioeconomy Projects
• Development Capital & Unsolicited Proposal Talking Points

You also can view the legislative language that AFCC has proposed, along with AFCC’s arguments and rationale in favor of creating the grant program, which AFCC has submitted to the Members of the House and Senate Energy and Water Development (E&W) Appropriations Subcommittees, is available for download and viewing on AFCC’s FY2025 Appropriations Requests webpage.

There’s also a list of the House and Senate Members who serve on each of the five appropriations subcommittees to which AFCC has submitted legislative and appropriations requests. You can view and download that list here.

If your Member of Congress  in the U.S House of Representatives or U.S. Senate serves on one of the E&W appropriations subcommittees, they can be a powerful voice in creating the grant program.  Reach out to them and they will respond to you.  If not, the  appropriations subcommittee members will be considering each of the appropriations requests received from all Member offices.

Now is the time to make your calls.

Each Member of Congress will be submitting their appropriation requests to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees between now and the end of March.

Thus, time is of the essence.

Each Member’s request will be based on what they have heard from their constituents and what they believe will be of most  beneficial to their constituents, with all of the possibilities pared down to a few priorities and the issues brought to their attention by their constituents.

You can be sure that your Representative and two Senators hear about the development grant program.

It only takes three phone calls. And a few minutes of your time.

You can go beyond making those calls and do even more to advocate for creating a development capital grant program … with grants available later this year or early next year. The lobbying tips and talking points will tell you how.

You also may wish to advocate for some of AFCC’s other priority issues. These include:

• More Access, More Flexibility, More Funding Through Unsolicited Proposals, as described in a recent Biofuels Digest article. AFCC’s proposed legislative language and argument in favor of improving access and funding through unsolicited proposals can viewed and download via the following links  for the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

• The creation of North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes for biofuels, renewable chemicals, and biobased products, which are presently lumped under the NAICS codes for products produce from fossil fuels.

• Additional refinements to the Department of Energy Title 17 Clean Energy Financing loan guarantee program to remove a large barrier to many companies that prevent them from applying by providing the Loan Program Office with sufficient funds to pay for due diligence, repaid at closing from the funds for loan obligation, so that applicants no longer have to pay in advance for due diligence, which can cost anywhere from $1 million to $3 million.

• The expansion of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology (ATVM) loan program from light duty vehicles to mid-duty and heavy-duty vehicles and encourage the development and manufacture of advanced vehicles, vehicle components, and vehicle adapter technologies.

• Providing the necessary incentives for private sector companies to remove decayed and diseased forest residuals that are fuel hazards that feed catastrophic wildfires in the national forests. AFCC’s request is based the U.S. Forest Service GIS-based wildfire hazard maps that show areas of moderate, high, and very high risk of wildfire, from which the removal of forest residual that pose fuel hazards is a priority, a request that is the result of several years of cooperative work with the U.S. Forest Service, forest managers, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and AFCC’s 150+ member companies.

Talking points and details on each of these requests are available for viewing and download on AFCC’s FY2025 Appropriations Requests webpage along with links to each of the four Biofuels Digest articles mentioned above and details on the remainder of AFCC’s 57 legislative appropriation requests, which include 29 priorities, targeted to programs in eight agencies that support and advance the bioeconomy.