The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has commended President Obama for his commitment to the biofuels industry by the creation of the Biofuels Interagency Working Group.

NCGA is pleased President Obama has acknowledged the importance of biofuels to our nation’s energy policy.

“We are pleased to hear of the formation of the interagency taskforce created by President Obama,” NCGA President Bob Dickey said. “This is a great example of the Administration’s commitment to biofuels and the biofuels industry.”

“In our conversations with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we understand a great deal of work needs to be done on modeling and a great effort needs to be put into using current and correct data regarding indirect land use,” Dickey said. “NCGA will be working closely with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and EPA to ensure scientific data is used.”

In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), EPA indicated that corn ethanol provides a 61 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline. EPA is seeking comments and a scientific review of land-use change effects.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) revised the RFS to require all ethanol plants constructed after 2007 to have a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Under the law, EPA was directed to consider direct and indirect land use change impacts into the life cycle analyses of biofuels production. According to the EPA, EISA sets the first U.S. mandatory lifecycle green house gas emissions reduction thresholds for renewable fuel categories, as compared to those of average petroleum fuels used in 2005.

“We look forward to the opportunities to establish that biofuels production can be achieved without land use changes,” Dickey said. “The corn and ethanol industries have a great story to tell and we look forward to telling it.”