Ethanol's Attributes Praised at CUTC

June 6, 2002

Larry Schafer, legislative counsel for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), opened the final day of the Corn Utilization & Technology Conference (CUTC) Wednesday by reviewing ethanol victories of the past year and opportunities in the upcoming one, notably the passage of the Senate energy bill which includes a renewable fuel standard (RFS). The CUTC is co-sponsored every other year by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). This year's conference is in Kansas City.

"Ethanol set an annual production record in 2001 of 1.77 billion gallons," he said, "and we are currently at a 2.3 billion gallons per year capacity today. The 14 plants under construction will raise that number to 2.7 billion gallons per year by the end of this year."

Schafer noted that the Senate energy bill is still in conference and offered an overview of the bill. "The energy bill will phase out MTBE in four years, eliminate the RFG oxygen standard while maintaining the air quality gains from that program, and create the renewable fuels standard," he said.

"The RFS is important because it requires a gradual and increasing percentage of renewable fuels, including ethanol and biodiesel," he continued, "growing to 5 billion gallons per year over 10 years."