Senator Toomey Wants EPA to Ease Up on Renewable Fuel Standard
Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania
Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, during an August 2011 town hall meeting in Tioga County
Senator Pat Toomey says drought conditions have driven up the costs of corn, creating a hardship for Pennsylvania dairy and chicken farmers. Toomey, along with six other senators, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking to keep the corn-based ethanol mandates to 2012 levels.
Renewable fuel standards set in 2008, are scheduled to increase from 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol in 2012 to 13.8 gallons in 2013. In the letter, the senators say that as the mandates divert corn from food supplies to fuel, the nation’s drought exacerbates a corn shortage, driving up feed prices.
“Ethanol mandates disproportionately hurt states like Pennsylvania,” said Toomey. “From our dairy and chicken farms to our refineries, this ill-advised policy hurts all Americans every day, costing consumers more at the grocery store and damaging our economy.”
In 2005 a bushel of corn cost an average $2 a bushel. In June of this year, the price had risen to $8.24.