EPA accepts pro-RFS comments on last comment day, but NFU says lobbying will continue
July 27, 2015 |03:28 PM
Micah Ragland, left, the Environmental Protection Agency’s director of public engagement, accepts boxes of Renewable Fuel Standards comments from Roger Johnson, center, president of the National Farmers Union, and Erick Lutt, director of industrial and environmental policy for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. (Fuels America)
An Environmental Protection Agency official today personally accepted more than 200,000 comments on the proposed volumetric requirements for biofuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard from Fuels America, a coalition that wants the agency to raise the required levels of usage higher than in the proposal.
National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson acknowledged that the expiration of the comment period today ends lobbying groups’ ability to influence EPA, but he said that the White House will also be involved in the final decision and that groups will continue lobbying the administration until EPA makes the announcement.
In the next four to five months, Johnson said, there will be lots of reviews including at the White House “and we will engage those folks.”
The basic message, he added, is that an RFS with strong volumetric requirements helps rural America and fits into President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda.
EPA has promised to finalize the volumetric requirements for 2014, 2015 and 2016 by November 30.
Micah Ragland, EPA’s director of public engagement, accepted the comments from Johnson and Erick Lutt, director of industrial and environmental policy for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and Fuels America released a picture of Ragland accepting the box of comments.
Other members of Fuels America include DuPont, Monsanto, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association.
In an interview after Johnson and Lutt emerged from the EPA headquarters today, Lutt said the comments were from all kinds of people in the biofuels “value chain.” Johnson said most of the comments discuss the economic impact of the RFS and how it fits into the administration’s climate change agenda.
Referring to the biofuels industry, Johnson said, “There's no economic development issue that has done more for rural America in the last 15 years, and the RFS drove much of that.”
Johnson added that EPA’s indecision over the volumetric standards for the last two years had damaged the industry because investors were uncertain about the government’s future commitment. Lutt said it had led to $13.7 billion in lost investment as companies chose to invest in other countries that seemed more committed to renewable fuels.
In a separate news release, Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen urged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to put the RFS “back on track.”
Dinneen charged the agency with “buying into the oil industry’s false narrative regarding the so-called blend wall,” and by doing so, “EPA has unnecessarily and illegally curtailed the unprecedented evolution occurring in the transportation fuels market that was delivering technology innovation, carbon reduction, and consumer savings.”
The National Corn Growers Association told its members today that they should “act fast” and still send in comments before the deadline closes at midnight.
“Last time, we were very clear to EPA about what we wanted,” said NCGA President Chip Bowling. “It is simple: EPA should follow the statute. For farmers and others in rural America, this new EPA proposal means low corn prices and ethanol plant and industry cutbacks. And for everyone, it means higher gas prices and dirtier air.”
Meanwhile, National Chicken Council President Mike Brown said in a news release today that it is “supportive of EPA’s proposed actions to adjust the biofuels targets for 2014, 2015, and 2016 to reflect the practical limits imposed by the blendwall,” but that the group would “support further reductions in the target level for conventional biofuels for 2015 and 2016 to account for the distorting effects the RFS has on the market for corn, substitute feed products, chicken prices, and food prices in general.”
Brown said that the use of corn for ethanol since 2007 and the export of ethanol have raised feed costs for the industry.
