Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy addresses the North American Agricultural Journalists this morning in Washington. (Charles E. de Bourbon/The Hagstrom Report)

The volumetric requirements for the Renewable Fuel Standard will be different from those at the proposed levels, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said today.

In a speech to the North American Agricultural Journalists, McCarthy said she has listened to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s point that gasoline consumption has risen since EPA wrote the proposed rule.

She acknowledged that the amount of gasoline demand had an impact on the numbers in the proposed rule, and that current numbers “will be reflected in the final rule.”

“We’ll definitely be using the most up-to-date data, and it will make a difference,” McCarthy said.

Although she did not say that the volumetric requirements would be higher, it appears that they would be because the gasoline consumption has gone up. The biofuels industry has complained that the proposed requirements rate too low.

Numbers like the volumetric requirements often change between the proposed rule and the final rule at EPA due to new information, McCarthy said, and the agency is “taking comments on everything” and will take 200,000 comments into consideration.

McCarthy also said she wanted to make sure the farm reporters understand that the Obama administration wants “to continue to grow this industry moving forward.” She said that she she expects the final rule to be released in late spring or early summer.

Biofuels, McCarthy said, are a key component in the Obama administration’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy. But she added, “One of the challenges we have is that the RFS was very aggressive” and was “developed with the idea that gasoline would continue to grow quite robustly in terms of its demand.”

But gasoline consumption, while growing again, is still down, and McCarthy said that in the proposed rule, “Our overarching goal was to put RFS on a path forward that is realistic.”

Under the law that Congress wrote, volumes go up every year, and EPA “needs to make sure it is implementable.”

One reality in the RFS, McCarthy said, “is the ethanol blend wall.”

McCarthy appears to be the first EPA administrator to attend an ag journalists’ conference, although her predecessor, Lisa Jackson, did invite a group of ag journalists to her office.

McCarthy said she accepted the invitation because “One of most important goals is to have a better relationship with the agriculture community.”

She noted that she has visited farms in Iowa and California, and has met with farmers in Missouri, Indiana and Kansas and also with farm workers.

At the Iowa State Fair, McCarthy said, she had a corn dog and “the most delicious pork chop I have ever eaten.”

McCarthy also defended the recent rewrite of the waters of the United States rule, noting that its intent is to clarify the waters that are covered by the Clean Water Act and “to provide certainty and predictability. “

She said she had worked “arm in arm” with the Agriculture Department in developing the rule.

She pointed out that current exemptions from permits for agricultural activities such as plowing and drainage “are all kept intact” and that the rule includes 56 exemptive conservation practices.

“This is not a land grab,” she said. “The Clean Water Act does not regulate land use, it protects the quality of waters that are important to all of us.”

“This proposal is not a final proposal” she noted. “It is the start of another level of dialogue” with the agriculture community.

During a question and answer period, McCarthy fielded questions on EPA-agriculture relations.

“EPA does not have a trusting relationship with the ag community,” she said, noting it was the agency’s mission to make sure people know “we’re genuinely going to listen.”

“We need to provide clarity in our rules,” McCarthy said. “I want to make sure people understand why we came out where we did.”

She was asked how she would define “success” at the EPA.

“If we can just be honest with people, listen to people, and try to make that right, even if people didn’t entirely agree with the direction we took,” she said. “I want them to know that we tried.”

Asked about the continual criticism of EPA from both industry and dissatisfied environmental groups, McCarthy said she did not consider everyone being “mad” to be the standard for success at EPA.