Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis tells biofuels industry leaders gathered in Phoenix that they need to fight the EPA proposal to lower the Renewable Fuel Standard by “Takin' It To The Streets,” the theme for this year’s conference. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

PHOENIX, Ariz. — In a riff on one of President Ronald Reagan’s most famous speeches, Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis appealed to President Barack Obama today to intervene with the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the agency’s proposal to limit renewable fuels to 10 percent of the nation’s fuel supply.


Tom Buis
“President Obama, if you seek to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, create jobs here in the U.S. that cannot be outsourced and strengthen the rural economy, and, if you truly want cleaner air, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, a better environment for our children and lower gas prices for American consumers, tear down this blend wall!” Buis said in a speech at Growth Energy’s fifth annual leadership conference.

Growth Energy was started by Jeff Broin of POET, a South Dakota-based ethanol construction and management company, but has come to represent a wide swath of the renewable fuels industry. About 500 people including industry officials and guests are attending the conference, which was opened to journalists for the first time this year.

Buis listed the organization’s many accomplishments, including the court challenges it has won against what it calls “Big Oil and Big Food,” but said the industry’s biggest challenge is educating the public about ethanol blends above 10 percent and their availability. He noted that the theme of the conference this year is “Takin’ It to The Streets.”

At last year’s conference, Buis noted, the industry was “coming off the worst drought” and costs were up and margins were down. But in the meantime, farmers produced a big corn crop and the markets for dried distillers’ grains and exports have improved.

But he also noted that the industry faces a major challenge in trying to convince EPA not to move forward with its proposal to reduce the Renewable Fuel Standard for all types of renewable energy.

Noting that various renewable fuels groups had formed a coalition called Fuels America, Buis said, “We have to unite, we have to work together because we are all under attack.”

The RFS proposal, he said, would stop the next generation of biofuels.

“We are in a campaign against big oil,” Buis said. “They’re not going to give up and we’re not going to give up.”

Likening the battle to a high hurdle race, he said that as soon as you go over one hurdle another one comes up.

“It is a fight over market share,” Buis said. “We are in the trenches of this fight.”