Leaders of the nation's biofuels industry on Monday accused the Obama administration of undermining the commercial success of advanced renewable fuels, like ethanol produced from corn cobs and stalks.
Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, said at an industry conference in Minneapolis that innovative, biofuel companies are looking to expand in countries like Brazil, China and India, rather than in the United States, because of this nation's unstable renewable fuel policy.
"It has put us in suspended animation and has made it inherently difficult … to find financing to build these new, innovative plants in the United States of America," McAdams said at the National Advanced Biofuels Conference & Expo at the Minneapolis Hyatt Regency.
McAdams' association represents producers of low-carbon and other advanced biofuels, including Gevo Inc., which is trying to produce isobutanol, a higher-value alcohol, at an ethanol plant in Luverne, Minn. He and other industry officials sharply criticized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's still-pending proposal to reduce the level of advanced biofuels that must be blended into the nation's fuel supply.
"They pulled the rug out from under the industry," McAdams said.
The EPA did not respond Monday to e-mail and telephone requests to comment.
"This administration is still dithering on whether or not to do the right thing," added Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group for producers of biodiesel from soybeans, corn oil and waste oils.
Jobe said the biodiesel industry showed in 2013 that it could produce 1.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, which is considered an advanced biofuel because of its significantly lower carbon footprint compared to fossil fuels. Yet under the Renewable Fuel Standard, a 2007 federal law that aimed to expand the biofuels market, the EPA now proposes blending significantly less advanced biofuel than the biodiesel industry produced last year, he said.
