US Senators urge EPA to update ethanol science

June 26, 2019 |

In South Dakota, a group of bipartisan Senators sent a letter urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to publicly announce its intent to review and incorporate the latest “Greenhouse gas and Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) modeling into an updated life cycle assessment for corn ethanol.

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), both members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, led the effort in advising EPA to update its outdated environmental analysis on ethanol. ACE CEO Brian Jennings issued the following statement applauding the Senators for urging EPA to formally adopt these changes without further delay:

“ACE extends our gratitude to Senators Durbin and Grassley for leading this bipartisan effort to hold EPA accountable on this important issue,” said American Coalition for Ethanol chief Brian Jennings. “Unlike the Argonne GREET model, EPA has not reviewed or updated their original 2010 corn ethanol greenhouse gas (GHG) assessments. Current data from the GREET model indicate that corn ethanol’s carbon intensity is almost 50 percent less than petroleum gasoline providing significantly more GHG reduction benefits than when the RFS was enacted a decade ago.

As background, an American Coalition for Ethanol White Paper titled “The Case for Properly Valuing the Low Carbon Benefits of Corn Ethanol” is available here.

Category: Fuels

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