Gov. Pillen touts Nebraska's bioeconomy at Governor's Summit

Hundreds of Nebraska’s leaders in agriculture and manufacturing gathered in Kearney Thursday for the Governor’s Summit.

The annual event has become an opportunity for Gov. Jim Pillen to highlight what the state is doing to help promote its bioeconomy, which includes ethanol, sustainable aviation fuel and plant-based plastics.

“We've made extraordinary things happen in the last three years by being able to do what no one else in the United States of America has been able to do, capturing carbon from the ethanol plants,” Pillen said.

The carbon capture pipelines will allow carbon dioxide produced at ethanol plants to be buried in underground locations where they won’t impact the atmosphere.

Pillen also highlighted how members of his cabinet are working to cut costs without reducing services.

“We started a DOGE program at Nebraska before anybody heard about DOGE, and we didn't call it DOGE,” he said. “We just simply called it ‘run government like a business,’ a systems approach to running our business.”

Pillen has asked state agencies to identify ways to cut 10% from their budgets in an effort to reduce general fund spending by a historicallysignificant $500 million.

Pillen’s right-hand man in that effort is Lee Will, the Chief Operating Officer for the State of Nebraska.

“When Gov. Pillen came in, agencies were asking for 5, 10, 15% increases of their budget,” he said. “The thing that we quickly were able to identify are, what are those things that we critically need to invest in, and what are those things that are just spending items that aren't going to move the needle for everyday Nebraskans?”

Will said the state’s general fund budget – which doesn’t account for federal dollars spent by the state – increased by 0.4% in the most recent year. Still, the state continued investments in the $600 million Perkins County Canal and a new state prison. A prison bid was recently awarded for $313 million.

Pillen talked about the need for workforce development in rural Nebraska but said government-funded housing projects are not the best way to go about it.

“All you got to do is look back at housing projects that governments funded. They've never worked,” he said. “There's a place for some seed money. I'm all in on that, but it's got to be in a way that a community is going to take that, start it and then really steamroll it to solve the problem.”

Instead, Pillen reemphasized the importance of property tax relief.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden also addressed the summit. The newly appointed secretary is second-in-line at the department. His visit marked the second time in the last week that a USDA secretary has visited Nebraska.

“What brings the nation's two top agricultural officials to the state of Nebraska in the same week?” Vaden asked. “It's simple. Even from Washington D.C., we can see there are a lot of great ideas coming out of Lincoln. And we want to come here to see what you're doing in terms of your agricultural policy.”

Nebraska’s pilot program to exclude soft drinks and energy drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was one of the policies Vaden praised.

“You were among the first states in the country to agree to stop funding diabetes and start using your food stamp program to put people toward healthier diets, so the taxpayers don't end up paying for their health care bills later in life,” he said.

Vaden also said the USDA is excited about the prospect of working with Congress to pass a "skinny" farm bill in the near future.