The Renewable Fuels Association provided USDA with a roadmap to renewable fuel growth in comments on its Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA). The agenda calls for “increased biofuel feedstock production and biofuel production efficiency and competitiveness to achieve market-driven blend rates of E15 in 2030 and E30 in 2050.”

RFA’s response identified the following five opportunities for the industry:

Increasing productivity in crops and ethanol to meet volume requirements sustainably
Stimulating more demand and reducing more emissions from the current RFS policy
Facilitating greater demand from future policy
Continuing USDA infrastructure investments to expand biofuel deployment and sell higher blends
Adopting carbon capture, sequestration and utilization technologies

In addition, the association identified several roadblocks that need to be addressed by the federal government. This includes providing RVP (Reid Vapor Pressure) parity for all ethanol blends, removing or significantly revising E15 fuel survey requirements and labeling requirements, revising EPA’s outdated lifecycle greenhouse gas analysis of corn ethanol, and eliminating unnecessary registration and pathway certification barriers to cellulosic ethanol production from corn kernel fiber.