Ethanol industry stakeholders panned the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed federal vehicle emissions standards released today as the deadline looms for taking action to allow uninterrupted sales of 15% ethanol fuel this summer.

“While we certainly share the Biden administration’s goals of increasing vehicle efficiency and reducing carbon emissions from transportation, we strongly disagree with policy approaches that arbitrarily pick technology winners and losers with no clear scientific basis,” said Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “Today’s EPA proposal would effectively force automakers to produce more battery electric vehicles and strongly discourage them from pursuing other vehicle technologies that could achieve the same—or better—environmental performance at a lower cost to the U.S. economy and American families. We urge EPA to reconsider its proposal and instead adopt a technology-neutral approach that treats all low-carbon transportation options fairly and equally.”

American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) CEO Brian Jennings pointed to comments made last month by EPA Agriculture Advisor Rod Snyder to ACE members in Washington, DC. “There is no question we will be using liquid transportation fuels for a long time to come, our lifetimes probably,” Snyder told ACE members during the group’s annual fly-in.

“Appreciating this truth, ACE members are dedicated to producing domestic biofuels with net-negative carbon scores – something that EVs will never achieve,” said Jennings. “Rather than put all our eggs in the electric vehicle basket, a smarter and more achievable approach would be through a technology-neutral Clean Fuel Standard that ensures fair and accurate accounting and crediting of GHG reductions from climate-smart agriculture practices and unleashes homegrown fuel sources.”