By Lindsay Croke
On Friday, September 20, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution overturning EPA’s tailpipe emissions standard. The standard calls for an average emissions reduction of 52 percent via the manufacturing of electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will now make up two-thirds of all vehicles sold by 2032.
Such a significant decrease of liquid fuel vehicles on the road will result in a significant decrease in domestic ethanol demand, costing family farmers around one billion bushels of corn demand destruction. Such a change could throw rural economies into a tailspin, according to a study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. IL Corn Growers Association (ICGA) remains vehemently opposed to this draconian standard.
“Corn farmers in Illinois applaud the House vote on a resolution that would overturn what ICGA calls the EPA’s de facto electric vehicle mandate. The emissions standards the EPA released in May focused only on electric vehicles as a pathway to decarbonize the U.S. transportation sector and did not consider other alternatives, like clean-burning corn-based ethanol,” says Dave Rylander, President of ICGA and farmer from Victoria, IL.
“The ethanol produced from my corn here in Illinois has a greenhouse emissions reduction of 45-50 percent below conventional petroleum fuels and it’s available to consumers now without having to overhaul our infrastructure and force Americans to buy vehicles they aren’t yet ready to buy,” he concluded.
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