Advanced BioFuels USA

by Donnell Rehagen (National Biodiesel Board/Biofuels Digest)  The biofuels industry found itself in an unusual position for much of the past 12 months. Typically confined to debates in the trade press, biofuels-related headlines are now splashed across the mainstream media. It’s new for most observers to see a host of Washington, D.C., political analysts race to be first in reporting on the latest back-and-forth between the EPA and champions of both the renewable fuels and oil and gas industries.

Of course, the issue at hand is the Renewable Fuels Standard and the EPA’s recent penchant for providing exemptions that release petroleum refineries from their obligations under the program. The intrigue is easy to explain by the actors cast in this drama. There is the aforementioned EPA, often a punching bag on both the right and the left, as a central character. Any tale starring President Trump is guaranteed to be a best-seller in today’s super-charged political environment. Add some of the most prominent names on Capitol Hill, stir, and voila! You have an instant spectacle, certain to be a box office hit.

Unfortunately, after the curtains are pulled back, the coverage is focused on what politicos determine is a fight between “Big Oil” and “Big Ag.” The headline, “Trump’s Trade Moves Hurt Farmers. Here’s How He’s Trying to Make it Up to Them,” sets the stage for a Washington Post article that sensationalizes the intersection of the RFS, a trade war and family farms, is just one example. 

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America’s most significant U.S. energy policy is reducing pollution, diversifying our transportation fuel portfolio and supporting hundreds of thousands of good-paying, green-collar jobs from the California coastline to the mountains of New Hampshire.

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The rewards of a strong RFS start with cleaner air.

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Biodiesel receives support from leaders in the American Lung Association, which is significant in that America’s advanced biofuel is powering school buses and providing a healthier environment for schoolchildren by reducing smog and dangerous, cancer-causing carcinogens.

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Diversification of our transportation fuels supply is also another important objective of the RFS.

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(T)he price of that oil is still determined by global markets that are primarily affected by geopolitics in the Middle East and elsewhere. We can only reduce American vulnerability to the volatility of oil prices by diversifying our fuels mix at the pump.

And while the media likes to characterize the agriculture industry in this story as “Big Ag,” the reality is that the industry is personified by family farms, some of which have been in the same families for more than 100 years. Many today are barely turning a profit, if at all. Our renewable fuels industry is providing new markets for those farmers and breathing new life into rural communities that were devastated in the Great Recession.   READ MORE