Sen. Amy Klobuchar rallies support for the RFS at Guardian Energy in Janesville.
Whether they’re in the White House meeting with President Obama or at the Bushmills Ethanol plant in Atwater, Minn. meeting with farmers, Minnesota’s top elected leaders are fighting hard to protect the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
“This proposal is wrong for our state and it’s wrong for America,” U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar told a room full of farmers and renewable fuels supporters on Monday at the Guardian Energy ethanol plant in Janesville, Minn. “When you start messing around and doing unexpected things like this, it messes up the energy supply.”
Klobuchar was talking about the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to slash the RFS and cut the amount of ethanol blended in our gasoline by 1.4 billion gallons in 2014. And she’s not the only senator or congressman from Minnesota fighting to preserve the RFS.
Senator Al Franken and Congressman Tim Walz have also held events in the state to rally RFS supporters and encourage people to make comments telling the EPA to not mess with the RFS. Congressman Collin Peterson and Rick Nolan both signed a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy expressing their disappointment in the misguided proposal.
Senator Al Franken has met with President Obama on the RFS issue.
Klobuchar and Franken even took a pro-RFS message straight to President Obama in a meeting a couple of weeks ago.
“A few weeks before Christmas, 20 of us democratic and republican members of congress met with EPA administrator Gina McCarthy,” Franken told a crowd of farmers at an event in Spring Valley on Saturday. “It was totally bipartisan. The administrator of the EPA acknowledges that ethanol is GREEN. I told the president that he’ll never have to worry about an ethanol spill in the Gulf.”
It’s not just senators and congressman standing with Minnesota corn farmers on this issue. State officials have also taken action.
Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson has toured the state and led events at a dozen ethanol plants. Governor Mark Dayton sent a letter to McCarthy telling her about the negative impacts an RFS cut would have on jobs and economic development in rural Minnesota.
“Our feedstock crops boost the entire state’s economic outlook, especially in once-struggling rural areas,” Dayton wrote.
Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner stops in Granite Falls as part of his statewide bioenergy tour to support the RFS.
At every event and in every media interview, one thing is clear: Farmers and renewable fuels supporters need to speak out if they want to stop this proposal from becoming permanent.
EPA is accepting public comments until Jan. 28. The Minnesota Corn Growers Association has already sent over 7,000 letters signed by corn farmers to the EPA’s offices in Washington D.C. If you haven’t submitted a letter yet, you can do so online by clicking here.
“The RFS is working, and the EPA needs to get out of the way,” Congressman Tim Walz told a group gathered at POET Biorefining in Lake Crystal last month.”Go to your neighbors. Go to the coffee shop. Tell people the facts and all the good things ethanol is doing for your community.”