DES MOINES - Iowa lawmakers who sit on the House agriculture and the transportation committees were told this week that the proposed biodiesel mandate will not be a boon for trucking firms.
Steve Lursen, special projects manager for Decker Truck Lines Inc., in Fort Dodge, told the ag committee Wednesday and the transportation committee Thursday that biodiesel does not perform to the same efficiency as straight diesel.
Decker conducted a two-year, 2-million-mile-haul test that ended in 2009, comparing No. 1 diesel and B20, a diesel fuel blended with 20 percent soybean oil.
At issue this week have been the interpretations of mandate proponents using the results of Decker's test, and opponents of the mandate using the results of the same study. Mandate opponents said biodiesel does not have the cetane, which acts like octane in gasoline, that straight diesel has. Mandate supporters claim the differences in how drivers handle trucks nullifies fuel performance differences.
On Jan. 22, the House transportation committee heard testimony from Don Heck, director of the Iowa Central Community College biofuels testing laboratory in Fort Dodge. Heck, who assisted with the Decker study, told the committee that the project showed biodiesel can be used effectively by trucking firms.
But this week, Decker's Lursen and Tim Burns, the company's chief financial officer, told the two committees that the company was not in favor of the biodiesel mandate, saying they had trouble with the blended fuel in cold weather, plus fuel efficiency - or miles driven per gallon - was less than straight diesel.
They also emphasized the broad disparity in the price of straight diesel out of the pipeline at $2.62 per gallon compared to the blended fuel at a local retailer at $3.83.
Decker trucks are currently not running on biodiesel, Burns said.
''We have no bone to pick with any of the partners in the project,'' said Burns, ''but we wanted to set the record straight.''
The Decker representatives said they were concerned that the company's name was being used by mandate supporters as wanting the mandate bill to pass.
''We are categorically against the mandate,'' Burns said. ''We did the test, there's your data, and if (biodiesel) becomes price competitive, we'll use it.
''We just don't want to be told by the government that we have to use it.''
Lursen said Decker was using biodiesel prior to the test; early on the cost of the B20 was less than No. 1 diesel fuel.
''But in the middle of the test, the price of soybeans and fuel skyrocketed,'' Lursen explained. ''Since then, fuel prices have come down and biodiesel can't compete.''
Difference is drivers?
Randy Olson, executive director for the Iowa Biodiesel Board, said the Decker study showed that the differences in how trucks are handled by individual drivers had more of an impact on fuel efficiency than the blended fuel itself.
''That study clearly indicated that driver-to-driver variability exceeded any performance difference between B20 and No. 1 fuel,'' Olson said.
In addition, Olson said the Decker study used B20. ''But the proposed legislation is for B5,'' Olson said. ''That makes all of their claims of fuel inefficiency insignificant.''
Minnesota's mandate
Brenda Neville, president of the Iowa Motor Truck Association, told the transportation committee that a biodiesel mandate in Minnesota resulted in trucking firms opting not to buy the blended fuel in that state. Instead, she said, firms purchased straight diesel in Iowa and other non-mandated states.
''The bottom line is cost,'' Neville said. ''Our guys are not in a position to pay for higher fuel costs.''
Dawn Carlson, president and chief executive officer for the Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores of Iowa, said her organization ''has always been opposed to mandates. It's a tax passed on to consumers, because almost everything they buy is brought to stores by trucks.''
Contact Larry Kershner at (515) 573-2141 or by e-mail at kersh@farm-news.com