The Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) is critical to giving investors the confidence to invest in advanced biofuels said Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Biofuels Council, during the #RFS Hearing hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Coleman focused his testimony on the perspectives of investments in second generation biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol.
“We want to innovate the fuel marketplace. But the problem we have, there’s two pieces of it – the global problem and the domestic problem. The global problem that we have from an investment perspective is OPEC is doing to us as it is doing to everybody right now. They are artificially driving down the price of oil to put frackers out of business in this country. And they have meetings once a month to decide whether they should take their hands off our neck or whether our industry and our oil rigs counts are down enough and the Saudi shares of oil are up enough. And for investors that see that at a macro scale don’t want to do that. It would be much more fun to get yelled at by their boss for making a mistake in real estate or bonds. And so there is this tremendous, macro global risk from an investment perspective that stems from the legality of collusion globally.
And on the domestic side we have to sell our product to the oil industry, that, believe it or not, does not want to reduce our dependence on oil.
So we have this double-edged problem. And the RFS is a glorious, best in the world solution to that problem because of one word: obligation. When the investors look at the RFS what they see is a perfect solution to that problem….So when it comes to why the #RFSMatters, the key is not just that the oil industry is required to use renewable fuels, but it’s that they can’t wriggle out of it.”
Listen to Brook Coleman’s testimony here: Brooke Coleman, Advanced Biofuels Council testimony at EPA hearing
