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Minnesota Corn president sees good and bad in RFS proposal

The president of the Minnesota Corn Growers is encouraged by some of the actions taken by EPA to strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Bryan Biegler, a corn and soybean grower from Lake Wilson in southwest Minnesota, says Renewable Volume Obligation proposals the next two years look promising.

“For 2022, they’re starting to get those levels back up. And then they’re increasing them for 2023. So hopefully they will follow through on that and keep that going. Especially since that was one of President Biden, when he was running for president, his promise to uphold the RFS.”

He calls EPA’s plan to deny 65 small refinery exemption petitions another step in the right direction.

But Biegler and others are disappointed the agency moved to retroactively cut RVO’s for 2020.

“It’s supposed to be set at 15 billion gallons, and they dropped it back down to 12 and a half. So that’s kind of depressing that they did that.”

Administrator Michael Regan says the package of actions enables EPA to get the RFS program back in growth mode by setting ambitious levels and reinforcing the foundation of the program is rooted in science and the law.