Letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mineta

6/15/06

Secretary Mineta
U. S. Department of Transportation
400 7th Street, S.W.,
Washington D.C. 20590
Dear Secretary Mineta:

We write to request your assistance regarding the BioBased Transportation Research that was included in Section 5201 of SAFETEA-LU. This particular initiative provides regionally coordinated funding to land-grant universities to conduct research and education programs concerning the development of bioenergy and biomass products.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush stressed the importance of developing bioenergy as a part of our nation's energy future. The Sun Grant Initiative was developed years ago to harness the research and education Infastructure of the land-grant university system, which has research field stations and extension agents distributed through every state and territory. The Sun Grant Initiative organizes these local and state-based capacities into regions, which are in turn coordinated with the national goals and programs of the federal agencies.

The Sun Grant Initiative divides all of the land-grant universities across the country into five regions, with a regional Center of excellence that are tasked to provide leadership within their region. The five regional centers are respectively located at South Dakota State University, Cornell University, the University of Tennessee, Oklahoma State University, and Oregon State
University. Presently, the Sun Grant Initiative is conducting on-going bioenergy research with the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Energy.

While SAFETEA-LU included $50 million for BioBased Transportation Research between FY 2006-2009, members of the Sun Grant Initiative have approached us with their concern about the dollar-for-dollar match requirements that they are subject to. While this match requirement may be an appropriate amount for traditional transportation research programs, it is a high matching requirement for research and education programs -- which commonly are subject to a twenty percent matching requirement. Above all, the dollar-for-dollar match requirement in the Transportation bill is extremely difficult for university programs that do not have the flexibility to redirect large amounts of non-federal funding to new purposes. To avoid inhibiting the implantation of important bioenergy research across the country, we respectfully ask that you exercise your discretion under Title 23 to reduce the matching requirement to twenty percent for BioBased Transportation Research.

We thank you for your leadership and assistance in resolving this matter. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Senators Thune, Clinton, Inhofe, Frist, Smith, Wyden, Johnson, and Schumer, and Representatives Herseth, Lucas, and Hooley

http://thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=289&Month=6&Year=2006