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Ethanol producer says changing RFS would be devastating

 

An ethanol producer says nobody wins but big oil if the Renewable Fuel Standard is changed.

Erik Huschitt is the CEO and General Manager of Badger State Ethanol in Monroe, Wisconsin.  He tells Brownfield changing the Renewable Fuel Standard and the value of RIN credits would be devastating for ethanol and grain producers.  “(It would) be the death toll to American agriculture at a time where already we hardly have sustainable corn prices for corn growers is to have anything that substantially hurts the demand base of which ethanol is now tied for feed as the biggest user of corn in the entire United States, to have anything set that demand source back.”

Huschitt says the RFS is the guard put in place to make sure ethanol makes it into the supply chain because, without it, the oil industry has no incentive to blend fuel at all.  “If big oil had the choice of having ethanol in the supply chain or keeping 100% of the market share, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors to win out that fight, and there’s no way with a monopoly as big as big oil is in the United States that the ethanol industry can fight that fight.”

 

Huschitt says the RFS is working, and there should be no further bargaining to benefit the petroleum industry.

Huschitt spoke to Brownfield at the Wisconsin Agri-Business Association Legislative Forum in Madison, Wisconsin.