Ag Policy Blog

Ethanol Industry is Going to Kansas City

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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The ethanol industry and its supporters will converge Thursday in Kansas City, Kan., for the EPA hearing on the proposed Renewable Fuels Standard rules.

The actual hearing begins at 9 a.m. Central at the Jack Reardon Center in downtown Kansas City, Kan.

A rally is planned, "Rally for Rural America" at noon concentrated on supporting the RFS.

As of now, the hearing draft of scheduled witnesses lists 256 people who plan to testify throughout the day from ethanol industry groups, ag commodity groups, petroleum companies, convenience store associations, petroleum marketers, farmers and others just listed as "citizens."

The hearing comes after EPA released volume standards for 2014, 2015 and 2016 in late May. While the 2007 law on the Renewable Fuels Standard puts the corn-based ethanol blend at 15 billion gallons for 2015 and 2016, EPA proposed lower volume levels of 13.4 billion gallons for 2015 and 14 billion gallons for 2016.

Proposed use of cellulosic ethanol has been cut significantly as plans for cellulosic facilities have come nowhere close to the mandated levels in the law. EPA proposed 33 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol volumes for 2014, 106 million gallons for 2015, and 206 million gallons in 2016. The law calls for 1.75 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2014, 3 billion gallons in 2015, and 4.25 billion gallons in 2016.

The biodiesel industry would receive a boost in the latest RFS with the EPA proposing increases in required volumes. The original RFS proposal called for a flat-lining of biomass-based diesel of around 1.28 billion gallons through 2015. The proposed numbers sets biomass-based diesel at 1.63 billion gallons in 2014, 1.7 billion gallons in 2015, 1.8 billion gallons in 2016, and 1.9 billion gallons in 2017.

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