The Renewable Fuels Association is pleased with the action taken by environmental groups in withdrawing from a lawsuit brought by the National Chicken Council, National Meat Association, and National Turkey Federation challenging EPA’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).
In this edition of “The Ethanol Report,” Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Bob Dinneen talks about what this means for the challenge to the RFS, which is vital to the expansion of renewable fuels for the transportation sector of the United States. “In the absence of the tax incentive, what is providing the foundational demand for the ethanol industry is the Renewable Fuel Standard,” says Dinneen. “We think that program has proven to be tremendously successful in reducing our nation’s reliance on imported oil.”
Dinneen says the environmental groups’ challenge to the RFS was much broader based than the poultry groups’ challenge, including that EPA had not taken into account the “global rebound effect” of ethanol driving down the price of oil which supposedly has led to third world countries using more oil. “That is how silly the environmental claims were,” he said. All that is left now, according to Dinneen, is a narrow issue regarding how EPA applied grandfathering provisions for addressing ethanol plants built in 2008 and 2009. “It says a lot about how far the angry birds are willing to go on this case,” he added, expressing optimism that the case will ultimately be thrown out.
Listen to or download the Ethanol Report here: Ethanol Report on RFS Challenge