With the second quarter of 2019 underway, the House is moving toward a restoration of the biodiesel tax credit (BTC), which expired 31 December 2017. A bill, co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of legislators, was introduced in that chamber to implement the credit through 2019 and extend it retroactively for 2018. If passed, it will certainly result in many amended tax filings from biodiesel producers. This legislation mirrors the Senate bill introduced earlier in the year by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Oregon). Tax bills must originate in the House, so the Senate plan was intended to raise the profile of the issue and keep it on the legislative agenda. In addition to stipulati...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.