The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is calling the new policy paper by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy released this week a continuation of “the orchestrated campaign to limit, and ultimately eliminate, the use of biofuels to displace foreign oil.”
The report, which was funded by Chevron Technology Ventures, concludes that “the current U.S. biofuels program that promotes corn-based ethanol is far from environmental sustainability and should be dramatically revamped.” Policy recommendations made by the institute are to revise the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to make it “more achievable,” eliminate the tariff on imported ethanol, get rid of the blender’s tax credit and “avoid defining corn-based ethanol as a ‘low-carbon fuel,’ a move that would be based only on political expediency and not on scientific analysis.”
RFA contends that the Baker Institute researchers used “out-of-date information and questionable assumptions to denigrate Congress, farmers, and ethanol producers for their support of domestically-based renewable fuels.”
“Not surprisingly, this oil industry-sponsored analysis relies on myths, generalities, half-truths to dismiss ethanol while providing no comparison to our increasingly dangerous and costly addiction to oil,” said Renewable Fuels Association Director of Public Affairs Matt Hartwig. “A debate about the appropriate role of biofuels is valid and should occur, but not without proper context and based upon last century’s assumptions.”