Ag and Biofuels industry leaders descended upon Ypsilanti, Michigan on Wednesday so speak at an EPA field hearing on their Supplemental Rule proposal to return to following the RFS-required 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol blended into the nation's fuel supply, including Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig:
“On Oct. 4, we celebrated when the EPA announced that it would reallocate waived gallons based on a three-year rolling average of actual exemptions. This would ensure the future RFS levels would be met, and I was proud to support this deal. A week later, we were astonished to learn that the EPA had rebuffed President Trump’s commitment to Iowa’s leaders and proposed a rule which offered no accountability or transparency, and fell short of the 15 billion gallon commitment. The proposed rule is eroding the public’s trust and creating even more uncertainty in the market. … Small rural communities in my home state, like Crawfordsville, Merrill and Sioux Center where ethanol plants have shut down, are feeling the effects first-hand. Hundreds of families have been impacted by these closures and have been forced to make hard, life-changing decisions because of the EPAs failure to uphold our President’s promise. … The EPAs plan to make calculations based on unfollowed recommended numbers instead of actual numbers is math that can only be concocted in Washington. The American people are growing tired of these Washington shell games. … In America’s heartland, the law is the law. A deal is a deal. 15 billion gallons means 15 billion gallons.”
Also there was Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor:
“As drafted, EPA’s plan fails to accurately account for lost gallons and betrays President Trump’s promise to rural America,” testified Skor. “It cuts the fix we were promised in half, if not more, and destroys what may be our last chance to bring back the ethanol plants that have shut down and help ease the burden facing American farmers. … Midwestern lawmakers and governors have seen the damage firsthand and worked with the president to secure a deal that would start to undo the damage – a deal that would honor this administration’s commitments to farmers, biofuel producers, rural America, as well as small refineries. But instead, the EPA has undercut the president’s promise and has yet again tilted the table in favor of the nation’s largest oil companies – all at the expense of the American farmer."
Geoff Cooper, President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, spoke and told us on The Big Show afterwards:
“This proposal fails to reflect the letter and spirit of the president’s commitment to restore integrity to the RFS, fails to assure that the statutorily-required 15-billion-gallon level for conventional biofuels will be met, and fails to restore stability in the marketplace by definitively ending the practice of allowing small refinery exemptions from eroding RFS biofuel demand. … RFA does not oppose the granting of small refiner waivers to any company that can demonstrate it is being harmed by the RFS. We do believe this is a high bar, however, particularly as RIN prices have fallen precipitously and EPA itself has concluded the cost of RIN compliance is recovered in the market. Indeed, we believe it highly unlikely any company is being negatively impacted by the RFS today.”
More support came from James D. Carstensen, Federal Government Affairs Manager for DuPont:
“After reviewing the details of the proposed modified 2020 RVO, the commitments made by the Administration and EPA leadership ring hollow. The promised solution to account for actual waived gallons was replaced in the rule with one where just half of the actual gallons lost to these waivers would be calculated. … Finally, there is limited faith in the 15 billion gallons means 15 billion gallons promise when the EPA cites many times throughout this modified proposed rule of their right to the discretion to ignore the DOE’s waiver recommendations. The EPA is using the same rule that promises to fix the problems they caused to reiterate and establish the agency’s right to continue the practices which have caused the problems. This is one of the best examples of bureaucratic hubris I have ever witnessed.”
And from from Shai Sahay, Senior Regulatory Counsel for POET:
“We appreciate EPA’s continued focus on the Renewable Fuel Standard and recognition that small refinery exemptions fundamentally undermine the RFS program by undercutting the RVO volumes intended by Congress. This situation has contributed to the erosion of environmental, climate, and national security benefits that were intended with the creation of the RFS and created significant hardship for farmers and rural communities during already challenging times. We were disappointed that the proposed rule departed from the biofuels industry’s understanding of EPA’s plans, and we believe that the rule falls short of EPA’s promise ‘to ensure that more than 15 billion gallons of conventional ethanol be blended into the nation’s fuel supply beginning in 2020.’”
EPA is in the middle of a 30 day comment period on the rule.