Hoeven signs NDSU ag budget, renewable fuels bill
Gov. John Hoeven came to the campus April 27 to sign legislation calling for a 34 percent budget increase for NDSU agriculture and enacts a comprehensive $42 million renewable energy plan for the state.
In the signing ceremony at the NDSU Pilot Plant, Hoeven signed the general appropriation bill for the Experiment Station, the Extension Service, Northern Crops Institute and the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute.
It includes $7 million in new funding toward a research greenhouse complex and $700,000 in biomass research and education.
According to Hoeven’s office, NDSU’s total agriculture budget is $186 million.
“Agriculture is our number one industry, and renewable energy and value-added food and fiber offer unprecedented opportunities for our producers,” Hoeven said to the gathering attended by NDSU officials. “The incentives we worked to pass this session will help us develop new and better products for larger and broader markets than ever before.”
President Joseph Chapman also had a few words to say about the legislation.
“This is really an incredible day not only for NDSU, but for the university system and the whole state,” said Chapman, noting that NDSU is ranked 24th in the nation in overall agriculture research out of the top 600 institutions. “This is going to have a huge impact nationally and locally. As an institution we have made the decision that we cannot be a great land-grant university without great agriculture, and many of these programs have a direct bearing on our ability to maintain our leadership in that critical field for the state of North Dakota.”
D.C. Coston, vice president for agriculture and university extension, said, “The bill allows us to grow our capability and the number of program areas as well as launch new programs and also to improve the infrastructure so that we can do what we do even better.”
The renewable energy bills do a number of things, including creating an energy independence council; a $5 million Biofuels PACE Fund; $3 million renewable energy grant fund; Biomass Demonstration Project; tax credits for the installation of geothermal, solar and wind energy devices; and property tax deduction for wind generation units.
According to Governor Hoeven’s website this current piece of legislation further demonstrates the governor’s expressed commitment to “advance the state’s traditional energy resources, like lignite coal, oil and gas, while promoting renewable energy opportunities, such as wind, ethanol and biodiesel.”
Prior to the recent piece of legislation directly benefiting the NDSU Department of Agriculture, the governor established his commitment to renewable energy incentives by authorizing legislation that created “an Office of Renewable Energy within the Division of Community Services at the North Dakota Commerce Department” in April 2005.