House Hearing Attacks #RFS

by Cindy Zimmerman (DomesticFuel.com) The House Oversight Subcommittees on Interior and Healthcare, Benefits and Administrative Rules held a joint hearing Wednesday to ostensibly examine the Renewable Fuel Standard but was basically an attack on the law.

EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality Director Chris Grundler provided testimony at the hearing and attempted to explain the purpose and intent of the RFS, including what the agency can and cannot do under the law, to obviously unfriendly lawmakers who used the forum to bring up every argument against renewable fuels, from food versus fuel to the blend wall. Grundler repeatedly noted that the job of the EPA was to implement the law as Congress intended. “Introducing new fuels into the marketplace, especially cellulosic biofuels, is not an easy task,” said Grundler. “But that is the challenge Congress took on with the RFS program and we are committed to implementing the program … as Congress intended.”

No one from the U.S. biofuels industry was invited to testify, which was distressing to the ethanol industry. “Unfortunately, the committee has stacked the witness list with oil company apologists intent upon undermining public support for this important program,” said Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president and CEO Bob Dinneen. “Why is the committee afraid to hear all sides of the debate?”

“Holding a hearing on the RFS without any biofuels stakeholders is unacceptable and defeats the very purpose of what this congressional committee is tasked to accomplish,” added Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “The lack of diversity of opinions on this panel exemplifies political theater designed to drive a false narrative and discredit the success of the RFS. Furthermore, one of the most vocal RFS critics on the witness list was a professor who has been funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API).”

The subcommittees also heard anti-RFS testimony from ActionAid USA and The Heritage Foundation. READ MORE and MORE (Biomass Magazine) and MORE (Biofuels Journal) and MORE (Biofuels Digest) and MORE (Renewable Fuels Association) and MORE (The Hill) and MORE (Morning Consult) and MORE (WNAX) and MORE (House Oversight Subcommittees on Interior and Healthcare, Benefits and Administrative Rules; includes VIDEO and written testimony)

Excerpt from Biomass Magazine: Moving forward, Grundler said biofuel use is expected to trend upwards. “We foresee steady growth in these fuels as competition increases and as more facilities come online to produce these advanced fuels.”

After 2022, the EPA will be tasked with setting annual requirements without the aid of statutory RVOs. Grundler explained that after 2022, the EPA is required to “establish what appropriate volumes should be.” He noted that Congress, however, did give the administrator a long list of factors to consider in setting those standards, including environmental impacts, impacts on energy security, impacts on costs to consumers, impacts on agriculture, and others.

When asked what the EPA’s post-2022 RVOs could look like, Grundler stressed that the agency has had a hard enough time setting standards one year in advance. “Figuring out what the world is going to look like in 2022 is pretty challenging,” he said. “So, the honest answer is we have no plans on what the standards would look like post 2022.”

“This is just more of the same old misinformation—a hearing that ignored hard data on the success of the RFS and that was packed with biofuel critics who relied on inaccurate information and misleading, manipulated data,” Buis continued. “Make no mistake, today’s hearing was nothing more than a coordinated attack against biofuels. Minus a few open-minded individuals who examined this issue based on facts, not pre-determined bias, this hearing did nothing to reflect the overwhelming contributions of the RFS.” READ MORE

Excerpts from Morning Consult: Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) asked DeCicco if it was “a matter of complete indifference to you that the American Petroleum Institute continues to fund your research into the future?”

“Yes it is,” DeCicco responded, adding that his opposition to the RFS “predates by a good number of years funding from the American Petroleum Institute.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) blasted the RFS in his opening statement, calling it a “classic example of what happens when you get a bunch of politicians together who think they’re smarter than the marketplace.”

Jordan was upfront about what he wanted to hear from the witnesses. “I hope our witnesses say, ‘We never should have went down this road in the first place, and the best thing we could do is get out of it as quickly as possible,’” he said.

For the most part, Jordan got his wish. Nicolas Loris, a Heritage Foundation fellow, responded to a question from Jordan. “After your opening statement, I was just going to say ‘ditto’ and forego my opening remarks.”

Loris did not forego his opening remarks, instead criticizing the market-warping economics of the RFS.

Then Kelly Stone, a policy analyst with anti-poverty group ActionAidUSA, testified that promoting the use of corn-based fuels like ethanol raises food prices and encourages agricultural land grabs, which disproportionately burdens the poorest people in the world.

Wallace Tyner, a professor at Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, offered the most thorough defense of the RFS. “So long as we continue to prefer the regulatory approach in lieu of a market-based carbon pricing approach,” the RFS is an “appropriate” way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, Tyner told the committee.

Anti-RFS lawmakers looking for a foil turned their focus to Tyner, which at times produced awkward results. Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) engaged in a back-and-forth with Tyner in which neither seemed to be on the same page.

“Did you know that it takes 50 acres of corn for a gallon of ethanol to be produced?” Russell asked.

Russell continued, “It’s not true? I see. Or 75 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol?”

Russell then asked Tyner, “Are you still of the firm belief that we need to eliminate petroleum with biofuel?”

Tyner responded, “I never said we should eliminate petroleum with biofuel. In fact, it’s impossible to eliminate petroleum with biofuel.” READ MORE

House Hearing Attacks #RFS

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