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Ethanol industry continues to defend RFS

An ethanol industry official says “Big Oil” is making a last-ditch effort to discredit the benefits of ethanol before the EPA’s final RFS rule is announced.

Tom Buis, co-chair of Growth Energy says it’s because the renewable fuels industry has taken 10 percent of the oil industry’s market share.  “Part of their purpose of rolling back this rule and keeping it under 10 percent and not breaking the blend wall is to stop the production and generation of what we call next generation biofuels,” he says. “Cellulosic and advanced which make up far greater volumes of the RFS goals.”

 

The oil industry has been running an advertising campaign in Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington, DC – and recently began airing them in Indiana.

Buis says Growth Energy recently launched a week-long ad campaign to counter the anti-ethanol message.  Those ads are airing in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana.

He says there is a reason they are targeting that part of the Corn Belt.  “The last time I looked there are a lot of members of Congress in the Midwest as well the East Coast and elsewhere,” he says.  “Part of that message is to Congress.  Out in Washington, DC there has been extensive ads that we have been part of with our coalition, Fuels America, that have pushed back on oil in a different manner.”

The deadline for the Obama Administration to announce its final rule on the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) is just under a week away and Buis says there are no indications of how the EPA will rule.  “Neither I, nor anyone I have talked to have heard when that decision ultimately will be made,” he says.

The Growth Energy ads feature fourth generation Iowa farmer and star of “The Bachelor” Chris Soules