Source: Susan Kelly, MEATINGPLACE, 7/6/17



The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed renewable fuel volume requirements that must be supplied to the market in 2018 under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, setting ethanol volumes at the statutory maximum of 15 billion gallons.

The volume requirements and associated percentage standards maintain renewable fuel volumes at levels comparable to the 2017 standards, EPA said.

“Increased fuel security is an important component of the path toward American energy dominance,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement. “We are proposing new volumes consistent with market realities focused on actual production and consumer demand while being cognizant of the challenges that exist in bringing advanced biofuels into the marketplace.”

The proposed rule calls for:
•  Non-advanced or “conventional” renewable fuel volumes to be maintained at the 15-billion-gallon target set by Congress.
•  The biomass-based diesel standard for 2019 to be maintained at the 2018 levels of 2.1 billion gallons.
•  EPA to begin technical analysis that will inform a future rule to reset the statutory volumes for cellulosic, advanced and total biofuels. The law requires this reset when certain conditions are met.

NCC reacts
The National Chicken Council (NCC) said keeping the volume for conventional ethanol use at the statutory maximum of 15 billion gallons means EPA has breached the 10 percent blend wall and will continue to subsidize overproduction of ethanol in excess of the statutory maximum.

This will divert corn from America’s food and feed use to foreign energy markets, NCC said. Congress set the cap on conventional ethanol at 15 billion gallons to prevent ethanol production from artificially diverting too great a volume of corn from feed, food and seed use to energy, NCC said.

At the time Congress set the cap, ethanol exports were not envisioned. However, last year ethanol exports exceeded one billion gallons, diverting more corn away from domestic feed and food markets to foreign energy markets, NCC said.

“Ethanol exports add nothing to U.S. energy security and the RFS is not being administered in keeping with Congressional intent,” NCC President Mike Brown said in a statement. “The RFS bureaucracy has taken on a life of its own and it is time for Congress to stop this runaway train.” 

The RFS has cost NCC’s members $60 billion more in feed costs since it was implemented, Brown said, while development of cellulosic biofuels has been slower than expected by lawmakers when they set up the program, stymied by regulatory delays and the economic downturn.

“American chicken producers are only one drought, flood or freeze away from another crisis, while the ethanol industry is protected from federal mandates,” he said. 

EPA said it is taking comment on addressing concerns that some RFS obligations are increasingly met with imported fuel from Brazil, Argentina and Indonesia.

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com .