PRST STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID OMAHA, NE PERMIT NO. 36
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Volume VIII, Issue 12
December 2014
Waiting for the EPA
EPA’s delay on RFS prolongs uncertainty by Gordon Wolf The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) November 21 announcement that it would not finalize the 2014 volume standards under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) until 2015, brought mixed reactions from elected officials in Iowa. The proposed rule, which the EPA issued in November 2013, would have set the volume of corn-based ethanol to be blended with petroleum fuel at 13.01 billion gallons, substantially less than the 14.4 billion gallons that had been required by the 2007 RFS. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called the EPA’s delay on the final rules mixed news for farmers and biofuels producers, calling the Obama Administration’s proposal to reduce the ethanol mandate ill-conceived, and he added that the postponement continues the uncertainty for the biofuels industry and everyone who works in it. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), also said the EPA’s delay of the 2014 RFS mandate allows uncertainty to linger. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey saw the EPA’s delay in finalizing the 2014 RFS as good news, stating that at least that the EPA had withdrawn what he called the misguided rule it had proposed in 2013. Like Harkin and Grassley, he said the uncertainty created by the EPA would continue to hurt the renewable fuels industry. Dr. Robert Wisner, professor emeritus, Iowa State University, said the EPA’s postponement of the RFS announcement is a big concern for the biofuels industry, particularly for the blenders, as the mandates should be announced in November the year before they go into effect. “The 2013 proposal was for a significant cut for cornstarch ethanol,” said Wisner. “For other biofuels, the question was how much the EPA would lower the cellulosic EPA, Page 2A