[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10118-S10120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ROTH:
  S. 2453. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend 
the credit for producing electricity from certain renewable resources; 
to the Committee on Finance.


               poultry electric energy power legislation

  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation that would 
amend section 45 of the Internal Revenue Code to provide a tax credit 
to biomass energy facilities that use chicken manure as fuel.
  Joining me as original cosponsors are Senators Biden, Mikulski, 
Sarbanes, Jeffords, Harkin, Helms, Huchinson, and Bumpers. 
  Mr. President, I am bullish on poultry's future in America. It is 
hard not to be with world-wide poultry consumption growing at double-
digit rates.
  In the United States, poultry production has tripled since 1975. We 
now produce almost 8 billion chickens a year to feed the growing world-
wide demand for poultry.
  In particular, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia produce some of the 
world's finest poultry. Just last year Delmarva poultry farmers 
produced over 600 million chickens. Our poultry farmers are among the 
most productive and efficient in the world.
  As the amount of chickens we produce as a nation has grown, so too 
has the amount of manure.
  Due to environmental pressures, spreading manure on land is no longer 
an option in some areas for our rapidly growing poultry industry.

[[Page S10120]]

  In the United Kingdom, several companies have been able to do what 
medieval alchemists dreamed of--turning a base element into gold--in 
this case an agricultural waste product into electricity.
  The UK has two utility plants that use poultry manure to generate 
electricity. These two poultry power plants will, when combined with a 
third scheduled to open this fall, burn 50 percent of the UK's total 
volume of chicken manure.
  The electricity generated by these plants will supply enough power 
for 100,000 homes. These plants have the support of both the poultry 
industry and the international environmental community.
  The way this system works is simple.
  Power stations buy poultry manure from surrounding poultry farmers 
and transport it to the power station. At the station the manure is 
burned in a furnace at high temperatures, heating water in a boiler to 
produce steam which drives a turbine linked to a generator. The 
electricity is then transfered to the local electricity grid.
  It is then used to supply electricity to commercial and residential 
customers.
  There are no waste products created through this process. Instead, a 
valuable by-product emerges in the form of a nitrogen-free ash, which 
is marketed as an environmentally friendly fertilizer.
  The legislation I am introducing today will provide a tax credit to 
energy facilities that use poultry manure as a fuel to generate 
electricity.
  It will build on concepts in the tax code that provide incentives for 
environmentally friendly energy production.
  I am introducing this legislation in an effort to encourage the 
development of another environmentally-friendly method of producing 
electricity, while at the same time tackling a thorny animal waste 
disposal problem.
  This legislation will provide incentives to build an energy plant 
that will not only dispose of poultry manure and create clean 
electricity, but will also supply our nation's farmers with a clean 
fertilizer free of nitrates.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring my bill, the Poultry 
Electric Energy Power Act, affectionately known as the PEEP Act. It is 
important for future generations that we continue to explore green 
technologies that will protect our environment.

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