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Nebraska Advantage Act is boosting biofuels industry(Omaha World-Herald (NE) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Dec. 3--Two-thirds of the 7,200 jobs to be created by companies that have lined up to get state incentives under a 2005 Nebraska law would be in the Omaha area. But nearly two-thirds of the $3.33 billion in capital investment will be in one industry -- biofuels -- in 12 towns with average populations below 5,000. A surprise? "Not at all," said State Sen. Pam Brown of Omaha, a prime supporter of the Nebraska Advantage Act, passed as LB 312. Certainly not the projected jobs growth in the Omaha area. "We looked back on the 775 experience," she said, referring to LB 775, a business incentives law that was a predecessor of the Advantage Act. "Where there are clusters of industry, that tends to be where you have industry that is able to qualify." Nor is >the huge amount of capital flowing into places as small as Carleton, population 136, and Adams, 489, a surprise to Brown. "We anticipated there would be a great interest in ethanol," Brown said. "There has been some concern that we are kind of putting a lot of eggs in one basket, but I think it was outweighed by how beneficial it is to agriculture, to the state and to the country, under the current circumstances." At Carleton, five miles off U.S. 81 in southern Nebraska, Altra Inc. has broken ground for an ethanol plant with an estimated investment of $175.94 million and a potential work force of 100. E Energy Adams LLC plans an $89.82 million plant employing 32 at Adams, 11 miles off U.S. 77 south of Lincoln. They are the smallest towns among the 12 that are to get ethanol plants aided by the Nebraska Advantage Act. The biggest biofuels plant for which incentives are being sought is at Columbus, population 21,000. Archer Daniels Midland is investing $750 million for an additional plant at its ethanol complex, saying it will create another 100 jobs. Capital investment the size of what has been announced for ethanol and soy diesel plants is a huge addition to the local property tax base in small communities, said Richard Baier, director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. And companies with 100 jobs are major employers, he said. Six of the 12 plants seeking incentives -- sales tax refunds, jobs credits, investment credits and personal property tax exemptions -- plan full-time work forces of 100. The others are smaller, providing 35 or fewer jobs. "Thirty jobs may not mean a lot in Lincoln, but in Ord 30 jobs is a significant impact, some really good, high-tech jobs in a rural community." Baier said. "If you look at the gamut of employees, you have a well-paid plant manager, a chemist, purchasing agent, grain buyer . . . great-paying positions." Under construction at Ord is an ethanol plant that promises 35 jobs and an investment of $63.77 million. Many of the biofuels plants qualify for incentives under Tier 2 of the five-tier Advantage Act, Baier said. Tier 2 provides a refund of half the sales tax paid for equipment purchases, a sliding-scale wage credit of up to 6 percent on the withholding pay of employees who have jobs that pay more than the average Nebraska wage, and a 10 percent credit on investment that can be taken off the company's income and sales taxes. To get those incentives, the business must create 30 new jobs and invest $3 million. A business creating 100 new jobs and investing $10 million gets a personal property tax exemption on corporate aircraft, mainframe computers and some other equipment in addition to the sales tax refund and the wage and investment credits. The 12 towns with biofuels plants -- ethanol or soy diesel -- in their futures will get 10 percent of the 7,200 jobs promised by 73 companies that by Oct. 31 had signed up under the Nebraska Advantage Act. Those numbers are for the employees once plants are up and running. Construction jobs also can bring from 75 up to a couple of hundred short-term workers to a rural community, Baier said. Most of the added jobs -- 5,000 of 7,200 projected -- would be in the Omaha area. Nearly 2,000 of the 5,000 are at one company, an expansion of PayPal Inc.'s operations center in La Vista. Throw in four more companies and the five account for more than 3,500 of the 5,000. Some of the jobs already have been created and filled. Amanda Pires, a PayPal spokeswoman at company headquarters in San Jose, Calif., said her company's Omaha-area employment is now more than 2,000. That includes some of the nearly 2,000 jobs to be added that the company listed on its Nebraska Advantage application in January. PayPal employees in temporary Omaha-area offices will move to the new building when it opens in about two weeks. Aspen Holdings projected 576 new jobs for its FirstComp subsidiary when it applied for Advantage Act incentives. Growth at First Comp, a workers' compensation insurance company, has brought the work force to 535, spokesman Andy Williams said. Its offices now are in the south tower of the Central Park Plaza in downtown Omaha. Williams said the company will move to the north tower and occupy five floors there. Netshops, which operates Internet shopping sites, projected 440 new jobs. It has 300 employees, many of them added since filing its Nebraska Advantage application early this year. The projection of 5,000 new jobs from Advantage Act-qualified businesses alone compares with an overall Omaha-area net gain of 7,900 jobs in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30 and 6,600 in the year before that, according to figures from the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Baier said he expects most, if not all, of the new businesses and expansions on the list of 73 projects will be built. By the time the companies have applied for the incentives, they have their plans laid and financing in order, he said. "By the end of 2008, most of these will be up and running." Nebraska Advantage applicants (Jan. 1-Oct. 31) Company Location Investment Jobs Biofuels plants Val-E Ethanol LLC Ord $ 63.8 million 35 Advanced BioEnergy LLC Geneva 149.1 million 100 Archer Daniels Midland Co. Columbus 750.0 million 100 BioFuels Solutions LLC Wood River 145.1 million 100 Nedak Ethanol LLC Atkinson 54.0 million 34 Cargill Inc. Blair 320.0 million 100 Avantine Renewal Energy Holdings Inc. Aurora 250.0 million 100 Husker Ag LLC Plainview 53.5 million 15 Altra Inc. Carleton 175.9 million 100 Northeast Nebraska Biodiesel LLC Scribner 4.4 million 12 US Canadian Biofuels Inc. Beatrice 58.0 million 30 E Energy Adams LLC Adams 89.8 million 32 Non-Biofuels Omaha area Enterprise Properties Inc. Omaha $ 1.3 million 12 Netshops Inc. Omaha 9.2 million 440 PayPal Inc. La Vista 42.5 million 1,997 Pinnacle Data Services LLC Gretna 5.1 million 35 American Title Holding Co. Bellevue 7.0 million 30 Rotella's Italian Bakery La Vista 34.0 million 50 Worldview Services Inc. Omaha 1.0 million 10 Distribution Management Systems Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 30 Quality Pork International Inc. Omaha 10.0 million 100 Pharmaceutical Technologies Inc. Omaha 6.4 million 36 MSI Systems Integrators Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 30 Prime Therapeutics LLC Omaha 5.0 million 332 Mann's International Meat Specialties LLC Omaha 1.0 million 10 Drake Williams Steel Inc. Omaha 10.0 million 100 Great Plains Communications Blair 30.0 million 30 Shell Rock West Inc. Valley 6.8 million 40 C&A Industries Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 30 Kendall Hospitality LLC Bellevue 15.2 million 36 Major Plastics Inc. Omaha 1.5 million 20 InfoUSA Inc. Papillion 4.3 million 250 Turnkey Solutions Corp. La Vista 3.0 million 30 Silverstone Holdings Inc. Omaha 5.0 million 30 Aspen Holdings Inc. Omaha 10.0 million 576 Greenleaf Genetics LLC Omaha 1.0 million 10 21st Century Systems Inc. Omaha 3.6 million 120 Professional Veterinary Products Ltd Omaha 10.0 million 100 Pamida Stores Operating Co. LLC Omaha 3.3 million 70 Travel & Transport Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 40 Thor Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 33 Lindsay Manufacturing Co. Omaha 11.0 million 100 Professional Research Consultants Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 30 Trade Well Pallet Inc. Gretna 3.1 million 36 Qualia Clinical Services Inc. Omaha 3.0 million 50 Central States Indemnity Co. Omaha 5.8 million 60 Glass Contractors Inc. Omaha 5.1 million 11 Glazer Ent. Inc. dba Elliott Equip. Co. Omaha 1.0 million 25 Lincoln area Thunderstone LLC Lincoln 2.5 million 12 Molex Inc. Lincoln 61.3 million 150 Lenco Inc. PMC Waverly 2.0 million 15 Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Lincoln 68.0 million 119 Midlands Packaging Corp. Lincoln 1.9 million 12 Vantage Pointe Homes Inc. Lincoln 2.0 million 30 Kamterter II LLC Lincoln 3.1 million 31 Lincoln Composites Lincoln 5.3 million 39 Nature Technology Corp. Lincoln 1.0 million 10 IMS Corp. Lincoln 6.5 million 20 Outside Omaha, Lincoln Smeal Fire Apparatus Co. Snyder, Neligh 2.4 million 30 Nucor Detailing Center Norfolk 5.3 million 222 Hornaday Manufacturing Co. Grand Island 1.0 million 10 Aurora Loan Services LLC Scottsbluff 10.0 million 100 Gibbon Packing LLC Gibbon 12.0 million 10 BVA Inc. Beatrice 3.5 million 30 Your Selling Team Inc. Chadron 3.1 million 77 Eaton MDH Co. Inc. Hastings 6.5 million 30 Chief Industries Inc. Grand Island 10.0 million 100 Heritage Disposal & Storage LLC Alda 6.7 million 31 Legacy Resources Co. LLC Genoa 10.0 million 30 Midwest Machine & Tool Inc. Columbus 1.0 million 10 Nebraska Plastics Inc. Cozad 3.0 million 10 Statewide TierOne Bank 17.5 million 210 BNSF Railway Co. 700.0 million 175 Note: Investment figures are rounded. Copyright (c) 2006, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. 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