On Friday, October 16, 2015, the Brookings Institute held an online panel discussion on 10 years of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The panel included two well-known ethanol critics, Timothy Searchinger and Chris Knittel, who have been directly linked to oil-funded research.

In response to the panel. Tom Buis, co-chairman of Growth Energy said: “I have said it before, and I will say it again, slapping a new title on this previously discredited research won’t change the facts. The design of this panel had one objective – to drive a policy directed at repealing the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) so that the status quo of a 90 percent mandate for petroleum based fuels and the excessive profits that it generates stays in place.

Conveniently omitted from today’s panel was discussion of the 100 years of subsidies Big Oil has been taking from the American taxpayer, as well as their disastrous record of ecological and environmental damage. The ethanol industry voluntarily gave up its tax incentives in 2011, and no beaches have ever been closed by an ethanol spill, yet these biased ‘researchers,’ continue to ignore the facts and attempt to discredit an American success story.

The RFS is the only meaningful policy to help break Big Oil’s stranglehold on the liquid fuels marketplace. This is an energy policy that is working. It is doing exactly what it was intended to do, with great success. It is irresponsible to rely solely on fossil fuels, and we should not put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to our national and energy security.

The bottom line is that ten years after the RFS, Americans across the country are celebrating and recognizing a decade of job creation, rural economic revitalization, clean air, innovation, and increased energy independence and consumer choice.”