Growth Energy slams Koch-funded anti-RFS Heartland Institute study

In Washington, Growth Energy responded to the Heartland Institute study it commissioned from Strata Policy and the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University that falsely suggests the RFS harms farmers. But the truth is that the RFS has been a tremendous success for America’s farmers and rural communities; to suggest otherwise is nothing short of disingenuous. – Net farm income averaged $62.4 billion over the 7 years (2000-2007) prior to the enactment of the RFS. Since then, net farm income increased to an average of $88.6 billion, an increase of nearly 42 percent that was driven in large part by the additional market opportunities afforded farmers by the ethanol industry and the RFS. Additionally, the biofuels industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs that can’t be outsourced while providing the largest single economic stimulus to rural America in decades. But it’s no surprise that Big Oil’s beneficiaries are at it again—these groups want to turn back the clock on the most successful energy policy our country has ever seen to defend fossil fuels’ monopoly and they are not above using America’s farmers as a political prop. – See more at: Strata Policy and the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University are both funded by the Koch brothers and the lead researchers, Randy T. Simmons and Ryan M. Yonk, are professors at the Koch-funded institute. This is not the first time the two have been the front of a suspicious study undermining environmentally sound policies, like the RFS. It likely won’t be the last either, so long as they continue to be funded by forces determined to keep the oil industry’s monopoly by undermining the only energy policy that has slashed oil imports, reduced harmful emissions, and saved consumers at the pump. These outsized forces have unlimited resources to spread misinformation and that extends to interfering with academic integrity.