EPA re-issues RFS required volume obligations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on May 29 re-issued the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) required volume obligations, a full 18 months after they were to be final.  The initial 2015 standards are also just now being proposed with the May 29 announcement, more than five months after they too were to be finalized. The EPA has not met its statutory deadlines to set the biofuels volumes under the RFS since 2009, the National Chicken Council (NCC) said, and this year's and last year's compliance volumes still will not be finalized until November 2015.
"These are clear and continued signs that the RFS, and its implementation, are broken beyond repair," said NCC President Mike Brown in response to the RFS announcement. 
Moreover, under the original statute, the 2014 through 2016 compliance years were to include a cumulative total of 9 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol.  Instead the EPA has called for 345 million gallons – less than four percent of the initial goals, another sign that the RFS was based on flawed assumptions.
"Meanwhile, EPA has mandated the use of approximately 10 billion bushels of corn over the next two years exacerbating the food versus fuel conflict," Brown added. "America's chicken producers are just another drought, freeze or flood away from another crippling year of high feed prices. To date, the RFS has cost the chicken industry more than $50 billion in higher feed costs."
The EPA plans to issue final volume requirements in late November, which could be higher than what the agency proposed today.
Brown concluded, "Fortunately, legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate this year to repeal the RFS corn-ethanol mandate, with broad bipartisan support. Congress should immediately take up this legislation and send it to the president's desk."

Restaurant organization blasts EPA for RFS inaction

The National Council of Chain Restaurants (NCCR) has expressed its frustration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Barack Obama administration for failing to act on the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard mandate.
NCCR on November 20 issued the following statement from its executive director, Rob Green: “In a bizarre move, the EPA inexplicably ignored the law and refused to make a crucial final decision on the 2014 RFS volumes.
“By backtracking on their initial recommendation on the ethanol mandate quota, the White House and EPA have chosen to accommodate a small group of ethanol lobbyists at the expense of American consumers and diners, the nation’s small business restaurant owners and all businesses that support and sustain the food supply chain.
“This unbelievable non-announcement demonstrates once and for all that the EPA, because of statutory and political considerations, cannot fix the failure of the RFS.
“Members of Congress should take note. The federal RFS ethanol mandate is irrevocably broken and needs to be repealed immediately. It is time that Congress take the RFS ‘off the menu’ once and for all.”
Since the RFS was implemented in 2006, costs for vital food commodities including corn, grain, poultry and meat have risen dramatically, driving up the price of food items in the nation’s restaurants and grocery stores.
NCCR is the leading trade association exclusively representing chain restaurant companies. For more than 40 years, NCCR has worked to advance sound public policy that best serves the interests of restaurant businesses and the millions of people they employ. NCCR members include the country's most-respected quick-service and table-service chains. NCCR is a division of the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade group.

EPA delays final 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced November 21 it will not issue a final 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) until next year, missing its deadline by more than a year.  According to statute, EPA is supposed to finalize each year's RFS rule by the previous November.
"Instead of providing the market some clarity by adhering to the statutory deadlines, EPA waited to see if the consumption of gasoline would go up this year as a tactic to inflate ethanol production," said National Chicken Council (NCC) President Mike Brown.
"EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said EPA would use the 'most up to date' numbers to set the 2014 standards – that was in April, nearly five months into the compliance year, and more than six months ago.  Waiting to set the standards after the fact is irresponsible and discriminatory, but unfortunately, the standard practice."
EPA has not issued the volumes on time since 2009.
"This seesaw process by which the EPA proposes an up-and-down, now-and-later moving target as the compliance year unfolds leaves poultry and livestock producers unable to plan and budget effectively," Brown added.  "While corn prices have moderated, volatility and uncertainty are the true business-killers."
Brown continued, "On top of all of this, we believed at one time that the original RFS included a workable provision that provided for an 'off ramp' in times of economic crisis.  On at least two major occasions – in 2008 and 2012 during catastrophic weather events – that belief has proven false.
"What more evidence does the administration and Congress need to prove the RFS — and the administration of it — is broken beyond repair?  The reality of this unworkable, unsustainable and imbalanced policy must be addressed in any energy or economic package that Congress considers in the near future."
Brown also noted that all of the numbers this year show that the biofuels industry has flourished, effectively without an RFS mandate, which is clear evidence the RFS is no longer needed.  "And for a program that was billed as being created to end our dependence on foreign oil , the ethanol industry is exporting its product at a rate faster than snow falling this week in Buffalo."
The USDA estimates that there will be 5.15 billion bushels of corn used by ethanol this year – nearly 36 percent of the total U.S. corn crop.  When the original RFS was implemented during the 2005/06 crop year, ethanol consumed about 15 percent of the corn crop.  Since the RFS was enacted, chicken producers have incurred more than $44 billion in higher actual feed costs due to the RFS.
"Despite this year's record harvest, the chicken industry is just one drought, flood or freeze away from having to face higher feed prices – and consumers facing even higher food prices – because of the amount of corn that is mandated to be used as fuel," Brown continued.
"Albert Einstein is said to have observed, 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.'  Today's announcement is further evidence that our current renewable fuel policy is not only broken, it's insane."

NCC supports EPA's RFS targets proposed for 2014

"The National Chicken Council (NCC) strongly supports efforts to create a more reasonable and sustainable approach to the nation's fuel policy," said NCC President Mike Brown in comments submitted this week in support of the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (RFS) targets proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 2014.
Brown wrote to the EPA administrator that the compelled diversion of corn from feed to fuel uses exacts a heavy toll on the domestic chicken industry and American consumers.
"NCC believes EPA is properly proposing to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce ethanol blending requirements consistent with the blendwall and cellulosic biofuel targets and encourages EPA to establish 2015 requirements in the same action," the comments continued.   "NCC believes these reductions are an important first step in establishing a workable framework that promotes a sound energy policy that does not harm the nation's food supply."

EPA proposes scaled-back Renewable Fuel Standard for 2014

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on November 15 proposed its 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which calls for a reduction in the mandated amounts of corn used for ethanol production in the United States. The proposed new standards are a welcome step for the poultry industry, but until the RFS is eliminated, a true solution to problems with high poultry feed costs will not be found, industry groups say.
The 2014 mandate proposes a range of 15 billion to 15.52 billion gallons of biofuels to be added to the U.S. fuel supply, with a recommended target of 15.21 billion gallons within that range. If the RFS becomes law, the target number would be a reduction of nearly 3 billion gallons when compared to the earlier standards.
"This is long overdue," said Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation. "The Renewable Fuel Standard has been affecting our members since the first RFS legislation was passed in 2005. It has disrupted certainties in feed supplies. It has caused swings in availabilities in feed, and obviously as a result of that, the pricing of feed. … We really do appreciate EPA and the administration, but we agree that this is a short-term breather, and that a permanent solution is still needed from Congress."
That permanent solution, National Chicken Council President Mike Brown said, is to completely repeal the RFS. "EPA's announcement today is a a good and welcome first step, but ultimately Congress must still act," said Brown. "Congressional action to repeal the RFS remains the most viable pathway to allow all users of corn have equal standing in the marketplace."
According to Brown, corn comprises nearly 70 percent of the ingredients of feed given to chickens, and since the RFS was more aggressively increased in 2007, rising corn feed prices have affected both poultry producers and consumers. He estimated that for poultry producers, average annual feed costs have skyrocketed $8.8 billion.
Developed with input from the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture, the EPA's RFS proposal seeks public input on annual volume requirements for renewable fuels in all motor vehicle gasoline and diesel produced or imported by the United States in 2014. In a separate action on November 15, the EPA is also began seeking comment on petitions for a waiver of the renewable fuel standards that would apply in 2014. The EPA expects that a determination on the substance of the petitions will be issued at the same time that EPA issues a final rule establishing the 2014 RFS.

Final 2013 Renewable Fuel Standard requires further action, says NCC

The National Chicken Council praised the Environmental Protection Agency for its willingness to adjust the Renewable Fuel Standard, but said the final standard for 2013 established on August 7 does not go far enough to truly help the poultry industry.
National Chicken Council President Mike Brown added that further action from Congress to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard is the best way to give poultry and livestock producers more market certainty for the feed grains that are also used in renewable fuels.
The final 2013 overall volumes and standards issued by the Environmental Protection Agency require 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be blended into the U.S. fuel supply (a 9.74 percent blend). This standard specifically requires:

• Biomass-based diesel (1.28 billion gallons; 1.13 percent)
• Advanced biofuels (2.75 billion gallons; 1.62 percent)
• Cellulosic biofuels (6.00 million gallons; 0.004 percent)

"The National Chicken Council appreciates that EPA has finally recognized the reality of the situation and is willing to consider adjustments to the 2014 volume requirements of the RFS to address the fact that we simply cannot blend more and more ethanol into less and less gasoline," said Brown. "This is a band-aid approach, however, to a problem that needs a long-term, sustainable solution. Chicken producers, and all end users of corn, can't rely upon the administration to make these adjustments on an annual basis. We need certainty in the market that only Congress can provide by repealing the conventional requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard."