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Continued growth with the Renewable Fuel Standard

A former Senator and one of the authors of the Renewable Fuel Standard says the renewable fuel industry has continued to see growth since the RFS program was authorized in 2005.

Byron Dorgan of North Dakota says the growing biodiesel and renewable diesel industry is a story of success.

“I remember talking about the development of a significant industry, and in a couple of decades it supports 65,000 U.S. jobs and more than $17 billion in economic activity,” he says. “That’s quite remarkable.”

The RFS was created to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand the U.S. renewable fuels sector while reducing reliance on imported oil.

In fact, Dorgan says it was a national security issue in 2005.

“In the 2002-2005 time period we were on the road to importing about 50 percent of all the oil we need,” he says. “…many of us decided that is a national security issue of great consequence. So, we wanted to see if we could create something different with a mandate called the Renewable Fuel Standard, producing liquid renewable fuels from agricultural commodities, animal fats, and so on. That mandate included in 2005 Energy Policy Act created the first Renewable Fuel Standard and building on that over time has created this unbelievable success.”

Speaking during the 2023 Clean Fuels Conference, Dorgan says there is some room for improvement.

“The road to success is always under construction, we know that. And it’s still under construction today,” he says. “With climate being the significant issue for this administration and carbon reduction, I would hope that this administration would have easily and already have decided that whatever the capacity is to produce in our area of renewable fuels, that’s what we’re going to do for RVOs. I would have hoped that it would be the case that they would reach that capacity in its recommendation for RVOs. We haven’t quite got there but we will. We will succeed.

Dorgan served as a Democratic senator and congressman from North Dakota for 30 years. He served 12 years in the U.S. House and 18 years in the Senate. He is now Senior Policy Advisor at ArentFox Schiff.