NFU to EPA: ‘Get off the duff’ on RFS; still hopes WOTUS will work
March 15, 2015 |05:23 PM
WICHITA — National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson told his members today they should tell Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy on Monday that she should “get off the duff and fix the RFS,” a reference to the agency’s delay in issuing the volumetric requirements for renewable fuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard.
McCarthy is scheduled to speak to the NFU on Monday, when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is also scheduled.
The NFU is the most Democratic-leaning farm group.
But Johnson also said that, unlike most other farm organizations, the NFU still has hopes that the EPA can rewrite the proposed Waters of the United States rule so that it can work for agriculture.
Roger Johnson
In his address to the NFU annual meeting, Johnson noted that the agency proposed lowering volumetric requirements for the RFS in 2014, but later withdrew that proposal and has promised to issue the requirements for 2014, 2105 and 2016 all at once.
“We are halfway into this three-year time period already,” Johnson said.
He also provided a strong defense of the RFS and the renewable fuels industry.
“If there is anything that has really been a spark plug to grow the rural economy in the last couple of decades, I would argue it would be this industry,” Johnson said.
Noting that he lived through the farm crisis of the 1980s and was later the agriculture commissioner of North Dakota, Johnson said that a lot of farm co-ops have been started and failed, but that the renewable fuels co-ops have been a success.
Speaking of attempts in Congress to repeal the RFS, Johnson said, “What a shame it would be” to go backward.
Renewable fuels have been good for both farmers and consumers, he said.
The EPA’s slowness in issuing the volumetric requirements “didn’t do a lot of damage to corn ethanol,” because that industry is already established, but it “decimated the biodiesel industry” and hurt cellulosic-based biofuels, Johnson said afterward in an interview.
EPA’s proposal to lower the volumetric requirements “was a horrible decision Everybody knows it was driven by the oil industry, everybody knows it was wrong. They never should have gone down this crazy road with this proposed deal.”
Johnson said the Advanced Biofuels Association’s call last week for reform of the RFS was “a huge mistake” but that “I can appreciate their frustration.”
Advanced biofuels “has been enormously harmed by the decision not to decide,” Johnson said of EPA’s lack of an announcement, saying these companies “are the guys that have huge amounts of investment capital.”
“They have billions of dollars at risk. This is the industry where most of that money left the country,” Johnson said. But he added, “The politics of them separating [from the rest of the renewable fuels industry] was an enormous mistake.”
Johnson said “there is no way they are going to end up with the political capital” that advanced biofuels needs to make legislative changes that would help them.
(Media Matter for America, a media watchdog group, has noted that the Advanced Biofuels Association has a number of executives who have worked for oil companies. See link.)
But Johnson defended NFU’s decision to call for changes to the Waters of the United States rule rather than “ditch” it, as the American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups have urged.
NFU’s approach “wasn’t to say ‘hell, no,’”Johnson said, but to to tell the agency the way it wrote the rule would impact agriculture and “here is how you can change the rule.”
Johnson noted that the current rule regulating water was put in place in the 1980s and has been modified by two Supreme Court decisions. That situation, Johnson said, has caused EPA civil servants to act “more conservatively” because they are afraid of being sued.
He also noted that every administration “puts out a whole bunch of rules in the last two years [it is in office], and you can scream and holler all you want but most of the time so rules go through.”
“We might say ‘throw this away and stay with the status quo,’ but we decided if they are going to push this through, we want to urge them in the right way.”
McCarthy is scheduled to speak to the NFU on Monday, when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is also scheduled.
The NFU is the most Democratic-leaning farm group.
But Johnson also said that, unlike most other farm organizations, the NFU still has hopes that the EPA can rewrite the proposed Waters of the United States rule so that it can work for agriculture.
In his address to the NFU annual meeting, Johnson noted that the agency proposed lowering volumetric requirements for the RFS in 2014, but later withdrew that proposal and has promised to issue the requirements for 2014, 2105 and 2016 all at once.
“We are halfway into this three-year time period already,” Johnson said.
He also provided a strong defense of the RFS and the renewable fuels industry.
“If there is anything that has really been a spark plug to grow the rural economy in the last couple of decades, I would argue it would be this industry,” Johnson said.
Noting that he lived through the farm crisis of the 1980s and was later the agriculture commissioner of North Dakota, Johnson said that a lot of farm co-ops have been started and failed, but that the renewable fuels co-ops have been a success.
Speaking of attempts in Congress to repeal the RFS, Johnson said, “What a shame it would be” to go backward.
Renewable fuels have been good for both farmers and consumers, he said.
The EPA’s slowness in issuing the volumetric requirements “didn’t do a lot of damage to corn ethanol,” because that industry is already established, but it “decimated the biodiesel industry” and hurt cellulosic-based biofuels, Johnson said afterward in an interview.
EPA’s proposal to lower the volumetric requirements “was a horrible decision Everybody knows it was driven by the oil industry, everybody knows it was wrong. They never should have gone down this crazy road with this proposed deal.”
Johnson said the Advanced Biofuels Association’s call last week for reform of the RFS was “a huge mistake” but that “I can appreciate their frustration.”
Advanced biofuels “has been enormously harmed by the decision not to decide,” Johnson said of EPA’s lack of an announcement, saying these companies “are the guys that have huge amounts of investment capital.”
“They have billions of dollars at risk. This is the industry where most of that money left the country,” Johnson said. But he added, “The politics of them separating [from the rest of the renewable fuels industry] was an enormous mistake.”
Johnson said “there is no way they are going to end up with the political capital” that advanced biofuels needs to make legislative changes that would help them.
(Media Matter for America, a media watchdog group, has noted that the Advanced Biofuels Association has a number of executives who have worked for oil companies. See link.)
But Johnson defended NFU’s decision to call for changes to the Waters of the United States rule rather than “ditch” it, as the American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups have urged.
NFU’s approach “wasn’t to say ‘hell, no,’”Johnson said, but to to tell the agency the way it wrote the rule would impact agriculture and “here is how you can change the rule.”
Johnson noted that the current rule regulating water was put in place in the 1980s and has been modified by two Supreme Court decisions. That situation, Johnson said, has caused EPA civil servants to act “more conservatively” because they are afraid of being sued.
He also noted that every administration “puts out a whole bunch of rules in the last two years [it is in office], and you can scream and holler all you want but most of the time so rules go through.”
“We might say ‘throw this away and stay with the status quo,’ but we decided if they are going to push this through, we want to urge them in the right way.”
