By Lindsay Croke
On Friday, September 20, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution overturning EPA’s tailpipe emissions standard. The standard calls for an average emissions reduction of 52 percent via the manufacturing of electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will now make up two-thirds of all vehicles sold by 2032.
Such a significant decrease of liquid fuel vehicles on the road will result in a significant decrease in domestic ethanol demand, costing family farmers around one billion bushels of corn demand destruction. Such a change could throw rural economies into a tailspin, according to a study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. IL Corn Growers Association (ICGA) remains vehemently opposed to this draconian standard.
“Corn farmers in Illinois applaud the House vote on a resolution that would overturn what ICGA calls the EPA’s de facto electric vehicle mandate. The emissions standards the EPA released in May focused only on electric vehicles as a pathway to decarbonize the U.S. transportation sector and did not consider other alternatives, like clean-burning corn-based ethanol,” says Dave Rylander, President of ICGA and farmer from Victoria, IL.