USDA Study finds ethanol reduces carbon emissions by nearly 50% as industry gears up for major environmental regulatory changes ahead.
An enormous agenda around climate offers both a challenge and opportunity in the legislative and regulatory arenas to demonstrate what a solution ethanol can be in both adding higher octane and lowering carbon emissions. That s according to former South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle and main architect of the initial Renewable Fuel Standard advanced in Congress nearly two decades ago.
While speaking at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association virtual meeting Jan. 26, Daschle recalls when he and former Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., started the RFS movement as those in agriculture sold the idea ethanol offered a pathway to oil independence after the events of 9/11. Today, ethanol can position itself around the unifying message that it provides a solution to eliminating emissions as focus ramps up on mitigating climate impacts.
by Jeffrey T. Manuel and Thomas D. Rogers (The Hill) President Biden has placed the Department of Agriculture (USDA) at the center of his administration’s focus on climate change. “We see farmers making American agriculture first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions and gaining new sources of income in the process,” Biden said in December. He proposes that USDA create a carbon bank from which it “would conduct a reverse carbon credit auction by offering to buy tons of carbon and GHG reductions from producers and forest landowners generated through improved land management practices.”
Excitement about carbon sequestration markets in agriculture has spread to the private sector as well, with several companies vying to tap into this new stream of revenue from farms. Policies that encourage farmers to sequester carbon are undoubtedly a good idea, but as historians who have studied ethanol policies, we urge policymakers to heed the lessons of the Renewable Fuel Stan
by Jinjoo Lee (Wall Street Journal) In the tug of war for former President Donald Trump’s favors, oil refiners won some surprising victories over ethanol producers. Their fortunes are about to flip under President Joe Biden’s climate-driven administration.
The fate of U.S. oil refiners and ethanol are inextricably linked through the so-called Renewable Fuel Standard, which sets annual quotas for the quantity of ethanol and biodiesel that must be blended into transportation fuels. The burden of meeting the blending requirements falls on those that refine or import oil. Those unable to meet any given year’s quota must fulfill it by buying Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) in the open market from those who have blended gallons to spare.
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OMAHA (DTN) Looking at the next 18 months to two years of global grain and oilseed demand, Archer Daniels Midland Co. executives on Tuesday said they see an