Chipping Away at the Value Proposition of Biofuels

Doug Durante, Executive Director Clean Fuels Development Coalition

The RFS, SAF, Tax Credits and smart farming programs are all predicated in part on reducing carbon.  The Trump administration, with little pushback from Congress, has said never mind, we don’t value that anymore.

 The “olden days” when “gasohol” was a movement to reduce our dependence on oil eventually morphed into more than that, namely an economic engine for agriculture and jobs as more plants were built. Then the environmental and health benefits began to be recognized, and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 created fuel standards that reflected those benefits. 

Numerous energy bills over the years kept the momentum going but it was the environmental benefits that propelled ethanol to the next level when the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) cemented ethanol as a key component of the motor fuel pool. It is relevant to note that the RFS was an amendment to the Clean Air Act and explains why it is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . Along the way we began to take notice of potential climate change and the role of greenhouse gases.

Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nox and other gaseous emissions trap heat and according to the overwhelming majority of scientists, create changes in our climate. These greenhouse gases are themselves pollutants and a health hazard. All the buzz over climate change for the past decade or more was focused on rising sea levels and catastrophic storms, with little or no referencing the fact that we might die from air pollution while we are fretting over the polar ice caps.

In 2007 the state of Massachusetts petitioned EPA to regulate GHGs and eventually the Supreme Court ruled that the agency must do so if it determined these pollutants endanger public health. EPA did make such a determination and identified the combustion of fossil fuels as a primary culprit and motor vehicles as the source. This gave birth to EPA essentially merging with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards to not just require higher mileage but also to regulate tailpipe CO2 emissions.

During the Obama years, and then again under the Biden administration, reducing carbon and CO2 became a focal point of everything. Government contracts were scored in part on the “carbon footprint.” Carbon credits became a valuable commodity, and the global economy recognized this currency. For ethanol producers and many farmers, they spent the past decade on a quest to get to “Net Zero” – the holy grail of carbon reduction. This entailed everything from reducing energy inputs to verification of low carbon farming practices and feedstocks. As noted, cars were now gauged on carbon emissions.

As usual ethanol had to overcome prejudice and ignorance to make its case as a low carbon fuel, but it did, and even California, long a nemesis of ethanol, blessed corn ethanol and we were off and running – until now.

Sandwiched between the two democratic administrations was Trump 1.0 that laid the groundwork for the drastic reversal of carbon reduction policies we are seeing now.

Rather than nibbling at the edges, the Trump administration is going for the knockout by directing EPA to rescind the finding that GHGs endanger public health. If they are successful – and there is little to stop them – it will kick the legs out from EPA’s authority to require reductions.

For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to claim these pollutants are not a risk to public health is part of an administration-wide campaign to ignore and even discredit the very concept of global warming and climate change. They have worked to remove all references to it from government websites while cutting funding for climate mitigation projects.

From the get-go, the new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said they were going to “put a dagger in the heart of climate change” and stated the mission of EPA was to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.” Really? The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to protect the environment and public health.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright calls the effort to get to net zero impossible and programs to reduce carbon as “silly,” dismissing clean energy and calling for more fossil fuels. Every federal agency is turning its back on all efforts to reduce carbon.

It is sad to see that EPA has lost its way so badly. Ethanol worked hard to prove its mettle in the environmental arena and has proven to save lives by replacing billions of gallons of carcinogenic octane enhancers. By dismissing CO2 and carbon emissions, the administration is exposing the public to harmful pollutants, period. This further erodes ethanol’s value proposition at a time when it is positioned to provide the reductions EVs were supposed to deliver.

And don’t look to the Supreme Court to save the day. The 2007 ruling was that EPA must regulate GHGs but only if they determined it was a health hazard. Well, by proposing to reverse their previous finding, EPA has already made that decision.   

Thankfully, California and a dozen other states still believe the U.S. needs to curb GHGs and carbon emissions and are continuing to embrace ethanol as a low carbon fuel.

Critics of ethanol argue that our current energy security makes the RFS and biofuel programs unnecessary. It is critical for corn ethanol to fight for our place on the menu of pollution control measures which is a key value proposition we cannot afford to lose. The resulting increase in demand for both ethanol and biodiesel would be an immediate boost to the rural economy, and the ag community needs to continue to promote high octane, low carbon pathways. California’s acceptance of E15 is a first step and moving to high octane E30 is the next.     `