Senators Request Corn Ethanol Waiver

U.S. Senators Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) recently wrote
a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa
Jackson, asking the agency to use its waiver authority “to adjust the corn
grain-ethanol mandate of the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS)” in light of
ongoing drought conditions. Signed by 26 senators, the bipartisan letter
notes that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already rated 50 percent of
the nation’s corn crop as poor or very poor while “stressful weather conditions
continue to push corn yields lower and prices upward.” The signatories have
thus urged EPA to employ some of the “safety valves” built into the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 “that enable the agency to adjust the
RFS in the event of inadequate supplies or to prevent economic harm to the
country, a region, or a state.”

“With record droughts across the United States causing corn supplies to
shrink and prices to spike, an adjustment to the corn-ethanol mandate will
provide relief from an emergency that is harming North Carolina’s poultry and
livestock producers and driving up food prices for consumers,” said Hagan in
an August 8, 2012, press release. “While I believe the RFS is helping to bring
advanced biofuels to market that are critical to reducing U.S. dependence on
foreign oil, the EPA should adjust the corn-ethanol mandate to reflect the new
market conditions created by the worst drought in 50 years.”