Anti-RFS ads to air in Indiana
Source: Tiffany Stecker, E&E reporter • Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2015
The ad is the continuation of a multimillion-dollar buy last month from the Smarter Fuel Future coalition, a group formed to drum up opposition against the renewable fuel standard. The ads seek to link the RFS to carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a pivotal U.N. conference on climate change in December.
ACCF announced last week that it had paid for ads in Ohio — another top corn-producing state — and Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont (E&E Daily, Nov. 3).
“If President Obama is serious about addressing climate change, then this administration should listen to Al Gore and repeal the broken corn ethanol mandate before it causes even more harm to the environment and consumers,” said ACCF Vice President David Banks in a statement.
The benefits of biofuels, particularly first-generation corn ethanol, for alleviating climate change has been hotly debated. Though the studies used by U.S. EPA and other federal and state agencies find the fuels reduce emissions over the life cycle of an energy crop, other studies say that the carbon balance is far from conclusive and that corn ethanol could lead to more carbon emissions in the atmosphere, not less.
Pro- and anti-RFS coalitions are spending millions on ads in the weeks before EPA is set to announce its final gallon requirements for biofuels for 2014, 2015 and 2016, as well as the biodiesel requirement for 2017. According to a legal settlement, the agency must issue its guidelines by Nov. 30.
The current RFS was born out of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which mandates that the country produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels, including corn ethanol, by 2022. EPA has the authority to issue volume amounts on a year-to-year basis.
Click here to watch the ad.