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RFA head: ‘Ethanol Evolution’ must continue

Supporters of ethanol were pleased to hear President Obama reaffirm his commitment  to biofuels in his major energy policy speech last week. 

In a letter to the President ahead of his speech, Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Bob Dinneen noted that no other energy technology can match today’s domestic ethanol production.

“When you do contemplate what’s going on in energy today,” Dinneen says, “you have to reflect on the fact that ethanol is not radioactive—right?  Ethanol doesn’t require a blowout protector valve.  It’s not going to damage the ecology in the Gulf Coast.  Ethanol doesn’t even need a no-fly zone.

“And yet it seems, when you talk about energy, the only energy that’s really under attack today is ethanol.”

Dinneen says federal loan guarantees are critically important if the ethanol industry is going to evolve beyond existing feedstocks and existing technologies.  While some in Congress are calling for an end to those loan guarantees, Dinneen says now is not the time.

“Now’s the time to be doubling down the investment in these new technologies,” he says, “and hope Congress resists the temptation to try to balance the federal budget on the back of agriculture generally and the ethanol industry specifically—and isn’t penny-wise and pound-foolish. 

“These are important program that must be continued.”

Dinneen says getting E15 in the marketplace and more flex-fuel vehicles on the road will help expand the ethanol market.