Since the 2008 Farm Bill was being debated in Washington, I've probably written a dozen stories about the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). This one may just be my last. Why?
In September, the Farm Service Agency released a notice outlining how the agency will allocate the limited funds available for the implementation of BCAP in 2011. This re-allocation was necessary, as the Appropriations Act of 2011 cut BCAP funding.
For those who need a refresher, the BCAP program has two parts—one is for "project areas" to support the establishment of new sources of bioenergy by providing establishment and annual payments to agricultural and forest land owners for the production of new crops. The other part of BCAP provides matching payments for the collection, harvest, storage and transportation (CHST) of existing sources of biomass.
In a BCAP story in Forest2Market's Forest2Mill newsletter, which was published one day after the appropriations bill was signed into law, I wrote:
"Details about how the USDA will adjust the budget for BCAP are not yet available. We don’t know at this point whether they will focus on one part of the program and spend the remaining money on establishing crops or whether they will divide cuts between the two parts of the program. Based on the focus of the final rule, which was heavily weighted toward encouraging crops and restricting matching payments, we suspect that once current contracts for matching payments are complete, this part of the program will take a back seat." (Read the full story.)
It turns out our suspicions were correct. In a new interim rule, the FSA has determined that the limited funds available for BCAP should be used for the establishment and annual payments (EAP) portion of the program. The agency has added the following verbiage to document that guides the implementation of the program:
"The limited funding available for BCAP means that not all BCAP requests can be funded. This interim rule explicitly provides a priority for funding establishment and annual payments for project area activities because such activities will produce the greatest long term good by providing an ongoing supply of new biomass. CHST [matching payments] would only be funded if resources are available after funding all eligible project area applications. The rule also enables prioritization among project area proposals if eligible requests exceed available funding. Future funding for BCAP could make such prioritizing unnecessary."
This means that funds will not be available for matching payments in fiscal year 2011. The FSA has announced it will not be qualifying any additional biomass conversion facilities until further notice (i.e., until more funding is approved), including those whose applications are pending. More funding is not likely to be forthcoming. For more information on BCAP.
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No BCAP Matching Payments in 2011 | Forest Busines
10-21-2011
[...] No BCAP Matching Payments in 2011 October 21, 2011 - 0 Comments By Suz-Anne Kinney – Forest2Market [...]
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No BCAP Matching Payments in 2011 | Forest Busines
11-07-2011
[...] No BCAP Matching Payments in 2011 November 7, 2011 - 0 Comments By Suz-Anne Kinney - Forest2Market [...]