By Ken Silverstein | EnergyBiz
When it leaked that the federal government may curtail its Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), the words started to pour from the mouths of the agricultural and oil communities.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now trying to reconfigure the biofuels’ mandate used for cars that was established in 2007. According to news reports, it could set that target around 3 billion gallons less than what had earlier been done, for 2014. The new level, at 15 billion gallons — and potentially as low as 6 million gallons — would need to get the thumb’s up from the White House.
President Obama has touted and supported such ethanol blends in gasoline. But if he would change course, it would then signal that corn-based ethanol is not living up to promises while advanced cellulosic ethanol has not yet arrived. Businesses making advanced fuel additives want to increase scale and bring down the cost to about $2 a gallon — a tough proposition in current market conditions.
If you’d like to discuss energy issues, contact Court Rich, director of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Department at crich@roselawgroup.com
