After the Obama Administration has enabled U.S. paper companies to pocket an estimated $25 billion in black liquor tax credits the past six years, now they want more. The paper industry’s trade association hailed the recent Republican election victories as a sign of “Americans’ real appetite for change in Washington, D.C.”
“The bureaucracy that causes delay after delay and regulations that fail to balance benefits with costs have created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the business community, making it difficult to plan for future investment when the rules change faster than they can be implemented,” said Donna Harman, president and CEO of the American Forest & Paper Association. She specifically singled out environmental regulations.
The Obama Administration choose to tackle climate change by subsidizing biofuels, letting the North american paper industry to hijack the incentives in ways that do nothing to help the environment. The paper industry received $25 billions of eco-incentives for doing what they had already been doing for decades: burning the black liquor, a sub product of pulp production, to produce part of the energy they use.The “miracle of black liquor" literally kept several companies afloat during a down paper market.
Paper companies are just about done squeezing the last drops from the black liquor credits, and with no more black-liquor credits or other handouts coming down the pipe, suddenly big government doesn’t look so good to the paper industry. “I look forward to working with the new Congress” said the industry spoke persone, aiming to roll back those environmental regulations.