USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack is announcing major new investments in biofuel infrastructure at an event in Illinois on Tuesday.
Vilsack is joining Senator Tammy Duckworth in Le Roy in east central Illinois, to announce hundreds of millions in new biofuel investments, funded through the just-enacted Inflation Reduction Act.
Renewable Fuels Association head Geoff Cooper says the spending on ethanol and other cleaner-burning biofuels is key during a period of high inflation. Cooper; “This is not the last time we will experience national average gasoline prices of around five-dollars, or certainly, more than four dollars a gallon. So, we know that one of the best hedges against that, is blending more biofuels into our fuel supply, and specifically, ethanol…because it’s lower cost, it’s produced domestically, and we’ve got an ample supply, here.”
USDA issued a statement that the new infrastructure investments will help 4,600 retailers boost domestic supplies of clean fuels.
Cooper says that will help the bottom-line of both ethanol refiners and corn growers.
“Forty six hundred retail stations is a lot of stations. Today, we are selling E15 at roughly 3,000 stations, across the U.S., and about 4,500 stations have E85 today. So, this single investment, this $500 million- investment would more than double the number of stations that are offering blends like E15, and that is going to be quite significant.”
The new bill also extends several biofuel tax credits, creates new credits for sustainable aviation fuel, and boosts support for carbon capture and storage.
