Governors' Biofuels Coalition

As per the terms of the legislative Acts which created and extended the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), Congress no longer has the power to set the Renewable Volume Obligations that dictate how many gallons of biofuels need to be blended each year. That number has been set at fifteen billion gallons. The power to set those requirements has been given to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Connecting climate change with something visceral and dangerous brings more immediacy to a problem that’s often seen as unfolding far away or in the future, even though it’s causing suffering now. “Climate pollution” is becoming common on the websites of green groups and atop news stories. “Carbon pollution” has been adopted by the Biden administration, appearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s site, in press releases about cleaning up manufacturing, and in speeches by the president. 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced that the state will follow California in requiring all new vehicles sold by 2035 be zero-emissions, setting in motion the regulatory process to implement a law she signed last year.   The announcement comes one month after The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to adopt Advanced Clean Cars II, which mandates 100% zero-emission and hybrid plug-in vehicle sales in California by 2035. That plan, with an initial goal of 35% sales by 2026, would achieve goals from a 2020 executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. It is expected to ultimately be adopted by the 15 states currently signed onto California’s zero-emission vehicle program, New York among them. 

In attempt to stop the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission from implementing a climate-reporting rule that could affect farmers and ranchers across the country, more than 80 members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation on Thursday that would effectively end the rule. The “Enhancement and Standardization of Climate Related Disclosures for Investors” proposed rule has been touted by the SEC as a way to protect investors in publicly traded companies. It would require those companies to report data about their entire supply chain, including farmers and ranchers.

On Sept. 23, the DOE announced $4.9 billion in new carbon capture project funding, $2.5 billion of which is earmarked for demonstration projects “at fossil energy power plants and major industrial sources.” In all, Congress approved $12.1 billion over five years for the agency’s carbon management program under the bipartisan 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. All that potential spending has led to calls for more accountability when the projects do not pan out.

Five multinational companies have committed to transition their medium- and heavy-duty truck fleets in OECD markets, China and India to zero emission vehicles by 2040, the environmental nonprofit Climate Group announced last week.

New York has begun the process to implement a 2035 ban on new sales of light-duty internal combustion engine vehicles, following the lead of California regulators who adopted such rules in August. Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, on Thursday directed the N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation to develop draft rules requiring a growing percentage of new light-duty vehicle sales to be zero-emission vehicles, beginning with 35% in model year 2026.

By producing fuel using sources with lower carbon intensity than traditional petroleum-based products, the U.S. biofuels sector is well-positioned to play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to a new report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, the recent surge of investments in U.S. renewable diesel production capacity is likely to ignite a period of growth and transition for the biofuels industry.

The two candidates for Iowa secretary of agriculture split Friday on whether government should require unwilling landowners to allow carbon pipelines to cross their land. Democrat John Norwood said eminent domain should not be used to build pipelines that transport captured carbon dioxide away from ethanol plants in Iowa because they do not serve a public purpose.

His opponent, incumbent secretary Mike Naig, a Republican, said eminent domain is permissible if the companies that have proposed three such pipelines get “significant voluntary agreements” with landowners for their routes.

Ethanol production in the United States through Sept. 23 took another sharp downturn, while blender inputs, a measure of demand, climbed for the first time in over a month, according to data released Wednesday, Sept. 28, by the Energy Information Administration. Overall domestic ethanol production dropped for a third week last week, tumbling 46,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 855,000 bpd, the lowest level since the week ended Feb. 19, 2021, when output averaged 658,000 bpd while down 6.5% from this time last year. A 51,000-bpd or 6% reduction in Midwest ethanol production to 799,000 bpd led the decline.