Posted December 13, 2013
On Thursday, Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Kay Hagan (D-NC) introduced a bill that would eliminate the requirement for corn ethanol from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), according to an article by Agri-Pulse available here. The text of the bill is available here.
While eliminating corn ethanol from the RFS, cellulosic and advanced biofuel mandates would remain.
The RFS was created in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and revised in 2007, creating a target for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels blended into gasoline by 2022. The EPA recently proposed a plan to cut total biofuel blending for 2014. A recent post from this blog on the EPA’s proposed plan is available here.
Sen. Feinstein said that she introduced the bill because “too much of the U.S. corn crop – 44 percent – is being diverted from food to fuel under the RFS.” She said, “I strongly support requiring a shift to low-carbon advanced biofuel … [b]ut a corn ethanol mandate is simply bad policy.”
Bob Dineen, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) called the legislation “oil-centric” and “deeply misguided.” He said, “By removing first generation ethanol from the RFS, the foundation will be pulled out from underneath cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels.”
The Jacksonville Daily News reports that Sen. Hagan said, “By eliminating the corn-ethanol mandate of the RFS, this bill will provide relief from high corn prices without harming investments in advanced biofuels.”
For more information on biofuels, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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