Governors' Biofuels Coalition

A top investor in Green Plains Inc is calling for the biofuel producer to run a full sales process at a time when the company is facing increased risks and strategic buyers are eager to purchase renewable energy companies. Ancora Holdings Group, which owns a nearly 7% stake and is Green Plains’ second largest shareholder, sent a letter, seen by Reuters, to the board on Tuesday arguing a buyer would likely pay at least $50 a share for the company.

While emissions of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, have fallen sharply in the U.S. in recent decades, actual emissions are significantly higher than the official government estimates, a new study concludes. Across the United States, 390 metric tons of SF6 were emitted into the atmosphere in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, according to a new study resulting from a joint initiative between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The study, designed to better quantify SF6 emissions in the U.S., was published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.  

 A bipartisan group of seven attorneys general from Midwestern states is pressing EPA and the White House to quickly approve petitions from states that would allow summertime sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), a move that would please biofuels groups but frustrate refiners, who warn that it would fragment the fuels market, raising prices.

The Iowa Republican, during a call with reporters Tuesday, blamed the influence of oil companies opposed to ethanol, as well as “traditional government foot-dragging.” His comments followed a letter Friday from Midwestern state attorneys general to EPA complaining that the agency has long since missed a 90-day deadline to approve their request to lift seasonal restrictions there.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has included a proposed $1.5 million in annual in biofuel infrastructure funding in his proposed budget, which was delivered to the state legislature on Jan. 24. The Minnesota Bio-Fuels Association (MN Bio-Fuels) is applauding the proposed funding.

President Joe Biden has made driving very large electric vehicles a signature move of his presidency. When the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning came out, the president zipped around a racetrack wearing aviator sunglasses. On Monday, the president’s Twitter posted a picture of him behind the wheel of a Hummer EV, with the caption: “On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.”

Even with electric vehicle incentives and other provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. will miss its 2030 emissions target under the Paris climate agreement, according to a white paper released Tuesday by the International Council on Clean Transportation, in partnership with Energy Innovation.

California’s decades-old right to impose its own automobile emissions standards could be on a collision course with a Supreme Court that has recently widened the target for challenges against EPA climate action. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on California’s waiver in September. Environmental attorneys say the case could eventually land at the Supreme Court amid a conservative push to challenge the limits of the executive branch.

“Wyoming has no desire to establish infrastructure that will likely fail,” the state said in its plan for how to spend EV-charging dollars from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. At the heart of the conflict are the federal government’s strict rules over how frequent high-power stations should be along the nation’s interstate highways. The Biden administration says that to assuage Americans’ doubts, the plugs should be installed every 50 highway miles, no matter how remote the site is.

Residents near the closed AltEn ethanol plant were told Monday night that contaminants found in area homes were “significantly higher” than those found in houses in Omaha and another rural community, Kennard. But investigators with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Creighton University said that more research is needed to determine if the relatively low levels of the class of pesticides called “neonicotinoids” would be harmful to human health, given long-term exposure in the area.