Corn and Soybean Leaders Compel Lawmakers to Stop EPA’s Anti-Biofuels Actions
by Dave Blower Jr. (The News Gazette) The Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) and the Indiana Corn Growers Association (ICGA) along with 12 other Indiana farm, ethanol and biodiesel plants and allied industries wrote to Indiana’s congressional delegation expressing frustration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to compel the lawmakers to action.
In a letter dated Sept. 12 and addressed to Senators Todd Young and Mike Braun as well as all nine of Indiana’s U.S. representatives, the ISA, ICGA and biofuels industry supporters explained that the EPA retroactively pulled more than 4 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel out of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) by granting Small Refinery Exemptions (SREs) to nearly all oil refineries that asked for the special waiver. The RFS is a federal policy that requires oil refineries to blend corn-based ethanol and soybean-based biodiesel with petroleum to create the variety of gasoline and diesel selections that are available at the pump.
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Within days, the largest U.S. ethanol producer, POET, closed a plant in Cloverdale, Ind. and cut production in nearly half of their other ethanol plants across the country. Biodiesel plants in Pennsylvania, Mississippi and Georgia were also shuttered following the Aug. 9 announcement.
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“Our farmers and biofuels industry expect the RFS to be kept whole by accounting for waived gallons and bringing more transparency to EPA’s secret process,” the letter pressed to the federal lawmakers. READ MORE
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