ACE president Ron Alverson (2nd from left) with other members after Hill visits
ACE members participated in more than 125 meetings with lawmakers representing 36 states to convey the importance of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and bipartisan legislation to extend Reid vapor pressure (RVP) relief to E15 and higher ethanol blends.
ACE president Ron Alverson of Dakota Ethanol says his visits on Capitol Hill went very well. “We had good discussions, they asked good questions, generally it was a pretty positive day,” said Alverson, noting that members are much more informed about ethanol than they were just a few years ago.
There is good support among ethanol-friendly members of Congress for the RVP bill, but Alverson says the sense he got from his meetings is that very little will be done this election year. “They said probably nothing at all,” he said.
Alverson is pleased with the turn out for this year’s fly-in, which has grown from just 25 attendees the first year to 60-80 on average now. “Quite frankly, it’s hard to handle more than that,” he said. “We 60 people we can cover the meetings pretty well.”
Listen to my interview with Alverson here: Interview with Ron Alverson, ACE