The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced a goal for biofuels to make up 30% of U.S. transportation fuels by 2050, a move that could bolster an industry that has been otherwise battered by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Refineries are currently required to blend 20.09 billion gallons of biofuel in 2020, about 10% of projected crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has been criticized by the corn-based ethanol industry after his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted exemptions to the blend requirement for dozens of oil companies over the last two years.<\/p>\n
The biofuel goal, which also included getting the blend rate to 15% in 10 years, is part of a new department-wide sustainability initiative aiming to boost farm production by 40% and cut the farm sector\u2019s environmental impact by 50% during the same period. The environmental goal also could deflect criticism from farmers and ethanol producers in an election year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, really, that\u2019s maybe one of the easiest to achieve, with going from E10 to E15 \u2026 that\u2019s a 50% increase,\u201d USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a news conference.<\/p>\n
Ethanol producers were waiting to see the reaction of the EPA, which has thwarted the move toward a 15% blend rate in the past even as the USDA has called for increased production of the corn-based fuel, said Todd Becker, chief executive officer of Green Plains Inc , which operates 13 ethanol plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think this is a supportive EPA of ethanol,\u201d Becker said. \u201cI think they are being dragged into it kicking and screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EPA said in a statement that it looks \u201cforward to continuing working with USDA to support sustainable farming.\u201d It noted that it approved E15 for year-round sales in 2019.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s first term ends in 2021, and he is campaigning for re-election in November.<\/p>\n
The plan stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration\u2019s ongoing approach toward environmental issues. Trump has described climate change as a \u201choax.\u201d Over the past two years, the EPA has granted more than 30 biofuel waivers to refineries, including facilities owned by Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp .<\/p>\n
The farm community\u2019s anger over the administration\u2019s ethanol policy has continued and given a potential opportunity to Democratic rivals, who hope rural voters in corn-producing states such as Iowa may be more open to voting for a Democrat \u2013 or simply not turn out on election day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced a goal for biofuels to make up 30% of U.S. transportation fuels by 2050, a move that could bolster an industry that has been otherwise battered by the Trump administration. Refineries are currently required to blend 20.09 billion gallons of biofuel in 2020, about 10% of projected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12570,5818,12384],"supplier":[8400],"class_list":["post-72212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodiesel","tag-biofuel","tag-ethanol","supplier-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72212"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=72212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}