​Los Angeles-Based Green Energy Developer Says Ex-Im Should Not Be a Political Issue

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The Seidners have been doing global forest products and agribusiness all of their lives.  Marc Seidner, President of Permanente Corp., began his career with his father Leo in the lumber business, and by the late 1960s they became “timber concessionaires” with a 1.5 million acre forest in Liberia.  They built the largest American owned, value-added forest products complex in Africa.  The Seidners’ global perspective and vision enabled them to grow into the cultivation of plantation pine forests and the sustainable fabrication of wood products in Australia, New Zealand, and Chile.

The Seidners, through Permanente Corp., are developing new technologies to produce exportable, cost effective cellulosic-based green energy fuels that are clean, non-polluting, ecologically sound, and environmentally protective.

These fuels are produced from abundant, sustainable California-sourced materials such as tree prunings, dead trees, recycled urban wood fiber, and wood construction residues.  Permanente’s technology also uses non-food agribusiness by-products including the pits from stone fruits, such as peaches, and the shells from nuts like almonds and pistachios. Los Angeles-based Permanente’s use of renewable materials is the only way they produce exportable green fuels made in California.

As a life-long Los Angeles resident, keeping these jobs local is important to Mr. Seidner and a major reason he supports the future of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. He says very few domestic banks have products that provide for local pre-export processing of sustainable fuels or the financing of qualified receivables.

Mr. Seidner is working to sell his green energy to the fast-growing Asian markets that require cleaner fuels to meet expanding demand. “Major Asian and European competitors are supported by their countries’ versions of the Ex-Im Bank, but they are not bound by our good labor practices or environmentally protective standards of operation,” said Mr. Seidner.

“Ex-Im Bank is here to give us the freedom to build our future for jobs and to let enterprising small business lift America’s standing in global export markets,” he said. “Without it, we lose.”

Mr. Seidner is emphatic that the Ex-Im Bank’s future must not be a political issue. “I want to compete on an international playing field where my hard work, creativity, and ingenuity are encouraged at home and rewarded in the marketplace,” Mr. Seidner said. “American small business must not be punished by political barriers to trade finance by shutting the doors of opportunity and by stifling growth inside our own borders.”