Two grant awards totaling a record $175,000 will help the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) continue its award-winning ethanol safety programs into the next year. The grants were received via TRANSCAER, a voluntary national outreach effort that focuses on assisting communities to prepare for and respond to a possible hazardous material transportation incident.

A $150,000 grant from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s ALERT program, will fund the creation of two safety videos, including a 20-minute video on “Responding to Ethanol Incidents” that provides the information first responders—and firefighters in particular—need if they are called to an ethanol incident. This grant also includes translating RFA’s ethanol emergency response training package into Spanish. Separately, a $25,000 grant from the Federal Railroad Administration will continue RFA’s training work into the new fiscal year by supporting 10 ethanol emergency response safety training seminars and four train-the-trainer webinars.

“RFA’s efforts over the past decade have helped the ethanol industry achieve an outstanding safety record, and we are excited to continue this important work in 2022 and beyond,” said Missy Ruff, RFA’s Director of Safety and Technical Programs. “RFA’s member companies, their employees, and our partners in the transportation industry are committed to being good neighbors and responsible members of the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to ensuring that ethanol producers, shippers, blenders, and emergency response personnel have the latest and best information regarding the safe handling of ethanol and responding to incidents. We appreciate and value our long-standing partnership with TRANSCAER and other allied organizations. We thank them for awarding these grants and we could not do this important work without them.”

This year more than 1,500 attendees representing 49 U.S. states and 28 other countries were trained through 34 training opportunities supported by RFA. Since 2010, RFA’s safety program has conducted some 350 training events for nearly 14,000 individuals For more information, visit the Ethanol Emergency Response website at www.ethanolresponse.com.