President Donald Trump has signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, a long-term budget agreement that includes extensions of lapsed tax credits for alternative fuel vehicles and refueling infrastructure retroactively for 2017.
On Friday, the bill, H.R.1892, was passed in the House (240-186) and the Senate (71-28) and later signed in the White House. For the alt-fuels sector, the bill includes extensions for tax credits that had expired at the end of 2016. This includes provisions for new qualified fuel cell vehicles; non-hydrogen alt-fuel vehicle refueling properties (hydrogen refueling infrastructure was already eligible for the tax credits); biodiesel and renewable diesel; second-generation biofuel producers; and two-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles (EVs).
Importantly, the bill also reinstates the $0.50/gallon alternative fuels tax credit (AFTC). As explained by the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC), part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office, the incentive, which had expired on Dec. 31, 2016, is applicable to fuel sold or used through Dec. 31, 2017. The tax credit is available for “natural gas, liquefied hydrogen, propane, P-Series fuel, liquid fuel derived from coal through the Fischer-Tropsch process, and compressed or liquefied gas derived from biomass.” Read the full article here.