While EPA continues to research whether to increase the amount the ethanol blend from E10 to E15 in non-E85 vehicles, a coalition of ethanol groups Monday called for the EPA to immediately approve the E12 blend for all vehicles

The coalition is made up of the National Corn Growers Association, American Ethanol Coalition and the Renewable Fuels Association.  

According to the coalition, “Decreasing dependence on foreign oil is a key to this country’s environmental, energy and security policy, and the EPA must provide a practical and workable solution to the ethanol blend wall issue and do so soon. Allowing E12 for all motor vehicles as an interim step to a full waiver for E15 is a reasonable and defensible first step to solve the immediate problem.”

The coalition said that the EPA has a “clear basis and the authority to approve E12″.

According to Growth Energy, a coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters:

 “Growth Energy’s Green Jobs Waiver follows the statutory requirements of the law and contained more science supporting E15 than any waiver in the history of the Clean Air Act,” said Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “In that waiver, which was filed more than a year ago, we said that the EPA was free to use the data assembled in the waiver “to support an immediate increase to E12 or E13 while studying the merits and data relative to the 211(f)(4) waiver up to E15.”

Buis said that despite the “unnecessary delays” from EPA thus far, “…we expect that the EPA will approve E15 later this year and Growth Energy will continue to advocate solutions like E15 that create a market large enough for the ethanol industry’s continued expansion.”

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)  has officially extended the comment period for 90 days on the proposed rule changes on the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) livestock marketing rules. 

 “Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle were very clear about the critical need to extend the comment period to allow stakeholders to thoroughly analyze the potential impacts of the rule,” said National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Woodall. “While it’s unfortunate USDA didn’t extend the comment period for a full 120 days as we requested, we’re pleased that stakeholders will have some additional time to further analyze this complex rule and its potential implications on the beef sector, which is the largest segment of the food and fiber industry.

 Woodall said the proposed rule change “has the potential to take the beef industry back 30 years by stifling the innovative efforts of U.S. cattle producers to add value and enhance the quality and safety of their products for consumers in the United States and abroad.”

The National Pork Producers Council also favors the comment period extension, said NPPC President Sam Carney.

He said the proposed rule, as it stands, would be “a disaster for pork producers like me who need options for selling our pigs and for managing risks.”

 According to a review by NPPC, the rule would dictate the terms of contracts, restrict marketing arrangements, require reams of paperwork, create legal uncertainty and limit producers’ ability to negotiate better prices for the animals they sell.

 “That’s a recipe for stifling innovation, driving up costs, forcing simple contract disputes into court and – given those adverse consequences – compelling packers to own their animals rather than to contract with farmers like me to raise them,” Carney said.

 Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said his organziation is pleased that the comment period has been extended.

“The rule’s regulatory changes will impact each operation differently,” Stallman said.  ”The impact of this rule on producers will vary depending on the type of animal produced on an operation, the ways the producer markets his or her product, and the location of a producer’s operation relative to slaughter and processing facilities.  Many other portions of the rule go beyond those issues clearly covered in Farm Bureau policy and will require additional analysis.”

 But Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, said extending the comment period plays into the hands of the nation’s livestock packing industry.

“Extension of this comment period gives leverage for packers to offer lower prices to producers as a fear mechanism, which we have seen in the past with rules such as Country of Origin Labeling,” Johsnon said. “NFU is an organization of producers and opposes the further extension of this comment period.”

 Johnson said the 2008 Farm Bill stated this rule was to be fully completed by June 18, 2010, which is another reason, he said, NFU is displeased with further extension of the comment period.

“This rule is for the protection of the producers and USDA has allowed for a sufficient amount of time to comment,” said Johnson. “Further extending the deadline is proof that USDA is buckling under the pressure of industry. The focus needs to be on the producers. While USDA is taking a step in the right direction with this rule, the process needs to be expedited instead of slowed down.”

According to a coalition of rural and farm interest, including R-CALF USAA,“To delay the comment period is a little more than an effort to delay and ultimately derail the proposed rule itself…(and the proposed rule is an appropriate first step to ensure that competition, not regulation or packer control, is the dominant force that directs the future of the U.S. livestock industries.”

“Unfortunately, GIPSA has never issued the regulations necessary to define these broad prohibitions in order to adequately enforce the protections for livestock and poultry producers, and as a result, the agency has been widely criticized by the Government Accountability Office, USDA’s own Inspector General, and outside stakeholder groups for its lack of enforcement of the PSA,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “The authors of the 2008 Farm Bill recognized that the PSA has not been properly administered or enforced and instructed GIPSA to use its existing authority to write regulations to define, among other things, the criteria for determining whether the unlawful practice of granting undue preference or advantage has occurred.”

Meatingplace.com reports that Brazil’s three largest meatpackers, JBS Friboi, Marfrig Alimentos and Minerva, “have suspended cattle purchases from 221 ranches located on indigenous land, conservation areas or near recently-deforested areas in the Amazon.”

Meatingplace.com’s information is from Greenpeace.

According to the story, “Last year the companies signed pacts to change their practices after Greenpeace released its “Slaughtering the Amazon” report exposing links between cattle ranching in the Amazon region and deforestation.”

“The initiative shows that meatpackers understood, in a clear and definitive way, consumers’ environmental concern message. This announcement indicates that the process is moving forward, that companies are taking steps on the matter,” AE Brazil Newswire quoted Greenpeace campaign coordinator Márcio Astrini as saying.

Astrini also said that by the end of the year a much larger number of ranches will be excluded from the companies’ cattle supplier list.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is expressing joy that the Senate’s proposed cap and trade legislation is off the agenda, at least for the summer.

Nelson has been an opponent of cap and trade saying it would cause energy prices, especially Nebraska’s electricity rates to go up.

Not that Nelson is opposed to cap and trade legislation. What he objects to is how the bill is written.

“It is one of those issues that must be stopped before it does irreparable harm to states like Nebraska,” he said. 

According to Nelson, cap and trade is “essentially a tax on carbon that is emitted from a variety of sources, including coal-fired power plants that provide most of the electricity we use in Nebraska.”

“ I oppose it because if it were to pass it would significantly increase the utility rates in Nebraska which would damage our economy,” he said. “ That would mean much higher electricity bills for homeowners, for businesses and for farmers who depend on reasonable electricity rates for irrigation.”

 According to Nelson, the bills would spike because Nebraska is a 100 percent public power state that cannot spread costs of cap and trade policies onto investors. Only Nebraska electricity ratepayers would pay.

“At this point, it’s difficult to see how the cap and trade system could be fixed,” he said.  “I am skeptical that putting a “cap” on greenhouse gas emissions and then having a system for power plants and others to “trade” allowances for emissions they produce—a kind of permit to emit– will work without adversely impacting Nebraska and other states that are in a similar position.” 
 
What Nelson said he does support is “broad energy legislation promoting renewable fuels, wind power, nuclear power, natural gas, and domestic oil, which could include setting reasonable targets for CO2 emissions reductions, and incentives to help America reach those cleaner air goals.”

“Obviously, in the wake of the oil spill, energy legislation should reexamine how to develop our oil resources, but with an understanding that our economy is still dependant on oil and gas and moving away from energy development here will only deepen our dependence on foreign sources of energy.” he said. 

With the U.S. economy struggling to recover from a major recession, Nelson said, “now is not the time to pursue legislation that would raise electricity rates in Nebraska and many other states, thus putting America at a competitive disadvantage with other countries and damaging the U.S. economy.”