The election is still a couple months away, but the conversation and the hot button issues are center stage every day. Biofuels are a hot topic and the Democrat’s “Green New Deal” has people talking.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigns for net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. What would that action mean for ethanol? Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Geoff Cooper says that it would not eliminate liquid fuels in the U.S. overnight.
“That transition is going to play out over decades, and so, if we are incrementally using less gasoline and diesel fuel, as long as renewable fuels like ethanol represent and increasing share of the gasoline and diesel fuel consumption, then we can keep and even grow our current levels of production and demand,” Cooper states. “And that’s what we’re focused on.”
However, some Congressmen look to the longer term impacts of eliminating liquid fuels. According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, “I think the idea is that if you can run this country without the internal combustion engine, and I’m sure that’s what they have to have in mind, you don’t need petroleum or ethanol.”
The race for the White House is not the only one happening though; 35 Senate seats are also up for grabs, including two special elections in Georgia and Arizona. Former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wants to make sure people understand the power a Senator has when it comes to biofuels.
“You may think to yourself, ‘What could one Senator do in term of the EPA?’” Vilsack notes. “First of all they could not vote for their confirmation and they could hold their confirmation up, until they got an iron clad promise to support the Renewable Fuel Standard.”