25x'25 Statement on CBO Renewable Fuel Standard Report

(25 x '25/Biofuels Journal) How the Congressional Budget Office reached the conclusion in a report released Thursday that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) will raise gas and biodiesel prices is a mystery, given the deep price discount advantages biofuels offer in the transportation fuel market.
A spot check this week shows E85 is selling at more than 200 locations in Iowa at an average of $1.64 per gallon, nearly half of the $3.23 being charged for a gallon of regular gasoline there.
And CBO's citation of "available evidence" in contending corn ethanol has "limited potential for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions" is even more curious, suggesting the congressional agency simply failed to pick up on the latest science, including the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory model that shows average corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions by 34 percent compared to gasoline.
Furthermore, research earlier this year by Dr. Steffen Mueller, principal economist with the University of Illinois at Chicago's Energy Resources Center, demonstrates that the RFS is a principal driver of the reduction in emissions that is taking place with the use of biofuels, noting that by 2022, corn based fuels (corn ethanol and stover cellulosic fuels) will offer a 60-percent reduction in carbon intensity or total annual emissions savings of 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent compared to petroleum-based fuels.
Under current blending requirements (2013) corn based fuels save already 40 million metric tons or 2.2 percent of transportation related emissions (1,827 million metric tons) in the United States.
The emissions savings trends are in part due to the continuously increasing efficiency of corn based fuel production as opposed to the decreasing efficiency of accessing tight oil supplies.
While CBO admitted their estimates were "highly uncertain," it is important that policy makers know there is solid research from leading scientific resources to show the RFS should be sustained to ensure biofuel's economic and environmental benefits.
For additional information, contact Ernie Shea, 25x'25 Project Coordinator, at 410-952-0123, or at EShea@25x25.org. READ MORE and MORE (University of Illinois) and MORE (Reuters) and MORE (Politico) and MORE (DomesticFuel.com)

Excerpt from Politico: “Some reports are simply not worth reading, and this is one of them,” said Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council. “You cannot assess the impacts of the RFS without looking at the benefits of reducing consumer demand for gasoline and diesel fuel. That’s the entire point of the RFS and the CBO simply states that ‘it did not account for that effect in this analysis.’ … CBO reports are supposed to be impartial and objective, and therefore informative. This particular report appears to detail a fantasy world that does not inform the current debate.” READ MORE