Gov. Kim Reynolds is looking forward to “building those same relationships” with President Joe Biden and his Environmental Protection Agency staff that she had with the Trump administration to protect biofuels, Reynolds said during Tuesday’s virtual Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit.
Reynolds, a self-described “tireless advocate and unwavering fighter of the biofuels industry,” pointed to EPA small-refinery exemptions granted during the Trump administration as a key challenge to Iowa’s future ethanol success.
With the exemption, a refinery is permitted to avoid blending ethanol into its fuel and therefore reduce demand for Iowa ethanol.
“I will hold this administration and the new EPA administrator accountable for transparent and fair rulings on biofuels,” Reynolds said, “just as I have always done with previous administrations.”
Photo Credit: Ag News Wire Renewable fuels, in Iowa, have weathered multiple storms in 2020 and have their work cut out for them in 2021. During his state of the industry address Tuesday at the 2021 Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) Executive Director Monte Shaw characterizes the Iowa biofuels industry as “battered, but battling for a better future” – emphasizing the many opportunities to expand biofuel demand in the state, across the country, and around the world, according to an IRFA press release. “Our industry just suffered through the triple whammy of RFS exemptions, lost export markets, and COVID demand destruction piled on top of each other,” Shaw said. “Yet, here we are. Which is what I love most about this industry,” Shaw says.
AJ TaylorJanuary 23, 2021Last Updated: February 28, 2021
Area corn farmers received some troubling news recently. Compared to 2019, Iowa ethanol production fell 500 million gallons, or 12 percent, in 2020 as a result of dramatic demand destruction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, trade disputes around the globe, and illegal exemptions granted from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Producing only 3.7 billion gallons, 2020 was the second year in a row that Iowa ethanol production dropped following 2018’s record of 4.35 billion gallons.
Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw called on state and federal leaders to take action to grow demand in 2021.
“While a pandemic is unpredictable and trade disputes are difficult to resolve, there are steps that our leaders can take today to begin to heal the demand destruction done to Iowa’s ethanol producers,” Shaw said. “President Biden can instruct his EPA to properly enforce the RFS as Congress intended.