National Chicken Council Vice Chairman Mike Helgeson, chief executive officer, GNP Company and National Turkey Federation Chairman John Burkel, an independent turkey grower from Badger, Wisconsin, wrote in a commentary published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today that the “Renewable Fuel Standard is causing more harm than good and that Congress should reconsider the ethanol blend rate.”
The RFS was passed by Congress in 2005 and mandates the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline. Most of that ethanol made in the United States is made from corn. Congress originally passed the RFS to help ease the United State’s reliance on foreign oil and contained a safeguard in the event of hardships. “However, the RFS does not recognize all dire circumstances as hardships. Last summer’s drought, which reduced the U.S. corn crop by one-third, is the best recent example of this discrepency,” said Helgeson and Burkel.
“Because of the better-than-expected fuel econmy and sluggish economic growth, the demand for gasoline has not increased as expected. As a result, Congress is reevaluting the mandated ethanol blend rate. This is the right thing to do. The negative consequenes of the RFS have been unintentional. But knowing that we can fix something that’s flawed yet not doing so would be a much worse fate,” Helgeson and Burkel said.
To read the entire commentary, click here A similar piece was publised in The Hill’s Congress Blog, which is available here.
The National Chicken Council and the National Turkey Federation worked jointly with Helgeson and Burkel to create and place the two op eds.
