August 10, 2009 » SWBA Endorses Bipartisan Senate Push for Biodiesel Standards
Albuquerque, NM (August 10, 2009) – The Southwestern Biofuels Association (SWBA) (www.swbiofuels.org) today announced its support for a bipartisan coalition in the U.S. Senate calling on President Barack Obama to keep the U.S. biodiesel industry alive by immediately implementing the biomass-based diesel mandate required under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). Read more »
June 24, 2009 » SWBA Supports Interim EPA Rule on Biodiesel Standards
Albuquerque, NM (June 24, 2009) – The Southwestern Biofuels Association (SWBA) today joined Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) in urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to consider an interim rulemaking to help the U.S. biodiesel industry remain viable in the marketplace until EPA issues final Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rules in 2010. Read more »
June 22, 2009 » NMSU takes a lead in growing America’s energy future
Las Cruces Sun News
By M. Therese Shakra
The green economy is quickly growing and NMSU and the College of Engineering’s Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE) continue to fuel New Mexico’s instrumental role in the transformative ‘green age.’ Read more »
June 10, 2009 » Energy future tied to national policy
Alamogordo Daily News
By Joan E. Price
This month, a national energy bill setting a national course for decades to come will be crafted. That may lead to a transformation of historically oil-rich New Mexican lifestyle especially if New Mexicans fulfill their unique fit in terms of solar radiation, marginal lands and saline ground water resources for cultivation of green energy fuels. Read more »
June 8, 2009 » NM research powers up biofuels industry
Out of the labs, into the markets. New Mexico-based laboratories and universities are front and center in the race to pwer ground and air vehicles with biofuels. Read more »
Legislation Introduced
New Mexico Congressman Harry Teague has introduced the "Biofuels Engineering Training Act" this Session. The legislation jumpstarts the development of the academic field of biofuels engineering by providing a grant for an organization like ABET to study what the accreditation standards should be for biofuels engineering programs. The bill also provides for resources to institutions of higher education to support under grad and graduate biofuels engineering programs and biofuels engineering training centers, and cooperation between those programs and the national labs. Government fellowships for biofuels engineering students also would be available if the bill becomes law.
Nearly 150 participants joined top New Mexico public officials, government, education, environmental, and biodiesel industry leaders to discuss challenges and strategies for public policy and the development of environmentally beneficial biodiesel fuel at the Southwestern Biofuels Association Policy Summit, May 27-28, 2009, at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Albuquerque. More than 30 experts in the biofuels’ political and scientific arenas including Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, Gov. Bill Richardson’s Science Advisor, Tom Bowles, Sapphire Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Dr. Jason Pyle, and top scientists from New Mexico State University and America’s National Laboratories addressed the Summit.
The Southwest Biofuels Association (SWBA) is a non-profit organization promoting renewable biofuels through strategic partnerships between the Southwest’s biofuel industry, universities, national laboratories, state agencies, educators, consumers, business entrepreneurs, agribusiness, environmental and other interested organizations. SWBA works with the Southwest’s unique combination of resources to make it a national leader in the emerging renewable biofuels industry by capitalizing on the region’s outstanding scientific resources, unique climate and natural resources conducive to producing biofuels feedstock in an environmentally superior manner, existing biofuel industry and infrastructure in agribusiness and fuel production, and progressive economic environment.
