IARN — A key Senate ethanol backer says the Biden EPA’s threat to lower 2020 biofuel volume requirements on top of rumored cuts to levels for this year and next, would severely damage biofuel and corn producers.
Senate Ag Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa says any move to further reduce last year’s biofuel requirements, already cut more than ten percent due to the pandemic, would be crippling to agriculture.
“This would be devastating to our farmers and biofuel producers. Furthermore, any future increase in volumes wouldn’t matter, if they lower past years, or the current year’s volume.”
Grassley argues biofuels are in keeping with the president’s push to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
“A move to lower biofuel volumes would make no sense from the promise that they made on biofuels, and also, cutting greenhouse gases, because biofuels do that.”
Grassley credits USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack with arguing for ethanol, but says others have the president’s ‘ear’ as well.
“I can’t tell you who has the most weight with the president’s ear. I think that, normally, it’d be Tom Vilsack, but with the control of the environmentalists in this administration, that would modify my statement to some extent.”
Grassley, who fought former President Trump repeatedly on small refinery biofuel waivers, again finds himself in a fight defending the Renewable Fuel Standard.
The Senator says he’s hearing concerns from his constituents that Biden is not supporting biofuels—a feeling reinforced by the president’s push to electrify the nation’s motor vehicles.
(Story by NAFB)
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Pictured: Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley questions witnesses during a Senate Ag Committee hearing on the cattle industry.
