Domestic, renewable ethanol can be a major contributor to job creation as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing dependence on foreign oil, Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis told a summit of agricultural legislative leaders meeting in Orlando this week.

“We are poised to create as many as 136,000 jobs in the United States with one regulatory move – EPA agreeing to raise the blend wall to 15 percent, as we’ve petitioned them to do. We could create many more with the construction of ethanol pipelines and blender pumps, to distribute this renewable, low-carbon fuel to the consumer,” Buis told the 2010 Legislative Agricultural Chairs Conference.

“When Congress passed the 2007 Energy and Independence Security Act, it decided that this nation must begin to take it domestic, renewable energy sources seriously. So Congress expanded the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates new levels of green, domestic fuels. But if states begin to erect regulatory obstacles that block the intent of Congress, such as the flawed Low Carbon Fuel Standard adopted by the California Air Resources Board, we will not be able to meet this objective,” Buis said.

“Growth Energy supports a national low-carbon fuel standard – if it is done right. Last year Growth Energy rolled out a proposal for a national low carbon fuel standard based on accepted science – not controversial theory – because ethanol is ultimately the only widely-available low-carbon fuel alternative to gasoline refined from foreign oil,” Buis said.

Earlier this month, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association jointly filed a legal challenge in U.S. District Court to California’s flawed Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The federal litigation charges that the California Air Resources Board ignores the intent of Congress by barring domestic ethanol from the California fuel market.