Because of the energy bill …
According to the United States Forest Service, 17 states have adopted renewable energy portfolio standards that will require between 1.1% and 20% of the state’s energy to be generated with renewable energy by 2020. The Forest Service has also reported that between 100 and 200 million acres of federal lands are at high risk for catastrophic fire and could provide biomass material to be converted into useable heat, energy, or clean fuels.
Sec. 210 Authorizes the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to make grants to persons to offset the cost of projects to develop or research opportunities to improve the use of, or add value to, biomass for the project to improve efficiency or develop cleaner technologies for biomass utilization; and the potential for the project to reduce the hazardous fuels from the areas in greatest need of treatment and it authorizes up to $50,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2006 through 2016.