Business Confidence with the RFS Under Attack: the Bioenergy Business Outlook Survey

Business Confidence with the RFS Under Attack

In Florida, Biofuels Digest and BIO have launched the latest Bioenergy Business Outlook Survey.

What is your level of confidence in the industry, now that petroleum refiners have launched a multi-million dollar pr campaign against the biofuel industry? Has your confidence been shaken? Do you see opportunity beckoning just as strongly, or more so?

You can respond to the survey here.

In the last quarterly survey, 78 percent of bioenergy executives reported being more optimistic both about their organization’s prospects for growth and industry growth, than 12 months ago, and that 72 percent are more optimistic about the industry’s prospects than at this time in 2011.

As BIO’s Paul Winters writes, “The bioenergy industry has good reason to remain confident. Despite the petroleum refiners’ months-long anti-biofuel campaign, voters’ support for developing biofuels remains constant. A voter opinion poll conducted at the end of May and released at the BIO International Convention shows that two-thirds of Americans support development of biofuels and bioenergy as a way to reduce both dependence on foreign oil and pollution, with 60 percent of voters rating those as very important issues for the country. Voter support for biofuels reaches 75 percent among Democrats and 67 percent among Independents; even among Republicans, support reaches 49 percent, with only 45 percent opposed. That level of support is unchanged since last Fall, even though petroleum refiners have spent millions over the past six months on lawsuits and a pr campaign to discredit biofuels.”

Help measure industry confidence, economic activity. Take the survey here. Responders get first look at results.