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Our Letter to President Obama
Posted 22 August 2014 in
The Fuels America coalition is taking its case directly to President Obama today in a full page advertisement in the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, a weekly newspaper broadly distributed across the island. In this open letter to the President, America’s leading biofuel producers are alerting the President how a proposal by his administration — if it is not fixed — will inadvertently cause investment in advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol to shift to China and Brazil, undermining his effort to tackle climate change.
As you enjoy some rest this week, we wanted to share some important news about advanced biofuels.
First, the good news: in no small part due to your efforts to transition America to a clean energy future, we are launching four large, commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants. Using groundbreaking technology developed by America’s most innovative companies, these four facilities will convert agricultural residue into the lowest-carbon motor fuel in the world.
Now, the bad news: the companies and investors looking to deploy the next wave of cellulosic ethanol facilities have put U.S. investment on hold because the EPA is proposing to dramatically change how the Renewable Fuel Standard works.
EPA’s proposal doesn’t just cut the amount of renewable fuel in the gasoline supply. It fundamentally changes how the annual targets are calculated. Instead of basing the targets on our industry’s ability to produce and deliver fuel, the proposal would allow the targets to be reduced if the oil industry refuses to make renewable fuels available to the consumer. Oil companies largely control retail fueling infrastructure through a complex maze of contracts with distributors that often restrict the sale of alternatives.
As designed, the Renewable Fuel Standard attracted U.S. investment because it changed this dynamic. If the program moving forward reflects rather than mitigates the oil industry’s unwillingness to market renewable fuel, the policy will cease to be effective and drive our industry overseas.
That’s why just increasing the biofuels volumes this year or next will not solve the problem. The solution must preserve the original structure of the program, incentivizing oil companies to provide fuel choice to the American consumer and support the retail infrastructure to sell more renewable fuel.
You have always been a strong champion of advanced biofuels and we know it is not your intent to undercut investment. It’s not too late to get the final rule right, so together we can make the United States the leader in producing the cleanest fuels in the world.
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