Ag Secretary Expects “Certainty” From EPA for Biofuels

Nov 26, 2021

By Cindy Zimmerman

On the day last week that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed extending the deadlines for refiners to comply with Renewable Fuel Standard volume obligations, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told farm broadcasters that the biofuels industry can expect “certainty” from the Biden EPA.

Answering a question about what role renewable fuels can play in climate change, considering EPA has yet to issue proposed Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) and E15 is essentially back to being banned in the summer, Vilsack said it’s an important role and producers will see support coming from Washington in a number of ways. “I think you’re going to see it in the certainty of the RVOs that basically the EPA puts out,” said Vilsack. “In the past, the previous administration set a number but that number, you could never trust it because there were waivers being granted in a very significant way…which significantly reduced that number.”

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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