9-6 IAN Ethanol Waiver

Idaho Dairy Farmers Applaud Unanimous Delegation Support For Waiver Of Ethanol Mandate.

Both Idaho U.S. Representatives, Mike Simpson (R) and Raul Labrador (R), and both Idaho U.S. Senators, Mike Crapo (R) and Jim Risch (R), signed onto recent letters from Congress requesting that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson use her administrative authority to grant a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in light of this year’s drought. The Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) allows the EPA Administrator to reduce the amount of renewable fuels that must be blended into gasoline if the economy or environment could be harmed by the requirement.  The mandate calls for 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended into gasoline in 2013.  About 80% of renewable fuel for blending is typically ethanol made from corn.  Here is the Executive director of the Idaho Dairyman’s Association, Bob Naerbout: “Our big concern with ethanol  from corn is that in these really tough times for the livestock industry and with ethanol taking so much of the corn production along with corn production dropping rapidly that the cost of feeding animals is going into the stratosphere and any avenue that we can take that looks like a good avenue by reducing the demand on the corn from ethanol.”