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NCGA not optimistic about 2017 RVO

The National Corn Growers Association is anticipating a timely release of EPA’s 2017 renewable fuel mandates, but they’re not optimistic about what the final numbers might be.

CEO Chris Novak tells Brownfield EPA’s 2016 Renewable Volume Obligations were about 200 million bushels of corn short of what was required by the Renewable Fuels Standard statute.  “As EPA has contended in the past that we can’t deliver the amount of ethanol required by statute—what we would say to that is that’s not true any longer because this new infrastructure is being built each and every day.”  He says efforts to improve dispensing higher blends of ethanol with USDA’s biofuels infrastructure grant program and the Prime the Pump program should disarm EPA’s main argument for lower renewable fuel targets.

Novak says a new ethanol toolkit will help farmers and state corn agencies have a unified voice to defend the Renewable Fuels Standard.  “As we’re looking at another record crop, as we’re looking at almost 94 million acres of corn planted in this country—that 200 million bushels of demand becomes critically important to our corn farmers.”

Novak says he expects a draft of the 2017 targets in the coming weeks.

AUDIO: Interview with Chris Novak