Grassley pressures EPA on biofuel targets

Higher renewable fuel standards keep demand high in the industries of corn, soybeans and other crops. That’s why trade associations and legislators alike have been publicly encouraging the Environmental Protections Agency to increase its 2016 and 2017 volume objectives before it releases its final target on Nov. 30.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley spoke with the Newton Daily News about RFS issues in a recent conference call. Grassley said there are number of ways Congress can attempt to persuade the EPA to raise its targets before the final RFS numbers are released.

“Renewable energy supports thousands of jobs in Iowa — 7,100 jobs in biodiesel alone,” Grassley said. “We’ve applied pressure to the EPA; The most recent (instance) was a bipartisan letter we sent to the EPA director, signed by myself and 35 other senators.”

Grassley, a Republican, was referring to a July 20 letter that urges the EPA to, among other specifics, call for a renewable volume objective of 2 billion gallons of biodiesel produced nationally in 2016, and 2.3 billion gallons in 2017. The EPA’s initial proposal, released earlier this summer, calls for targets of 1.8 and 1.9 billion gallons for 2016 and 2017, respectively.

The letter is signed by a diversity of U.S. Senators, including Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, Al Franken of Minnesota and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The letter is addressed to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed in July 2013.

Grassley said the blend wall, which requires only enough Ethanol to be produced annually to reach a certain percentage of the total fuel consumption, needs to be raised as well.

“People are driving more,” Grassley said. “Now, it shows that instead of using 135 billion gallons of petroleum, we’re up to around 145. We have the 14.3 billion gallons of biofuel mandated by the EPA, which the EPA cut back, which it shows now that it shouldn’t have been cut back.”

Iowa’s junior senator, Republican Joni Ernst, joins Grassley on the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. She also has called for higher RFS targets, as has U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, a Democrat.

In June, an EPA hearing in Kansas City about RFS featured testimony from many agriculture-industry representatives and their elected-leader supporters. Not only did Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and members of the Iowa Soybean Association and American Soybean Association testify, but so did employees of REG, including Newton plant manager Phil Abels.

Since the FDA recently banned partially hydrogenated oil, a higher RFS would instantly provide a new destination for millions of pounds of soybeans.

Grassley said increased biofuel production will help reduce dependence not only on foreign oil, but also dependence on any time of fuel taken out of the ground directly.

“The EPA is doing a lot things that don’t need to be done right now, for the excuse that they’re using,” he said.