U.S. Senators John Thune (R-S.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) reintroduced the Adopt GREET Act, which would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update its outdated lifecycle modeling for ethanol and biodiesel, specifically by adopting the latest Argonne National Lab’s Greenhouse Gas and Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) Model. American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) CEO Brian Jennings issued the following statement:
“We appreciate Senator Thune’s and Klobuchar’s legislation, which helps lay the foundation for ethanol to decarbonize the transportation sector by requiring EPA to apply the latest GREET model to more accurately account for corn ethanol’s carbon intensity when establishing regulations which could impact ethanol use in the future.
“The U.S. Department of Energy GREET model, which is widely recognized as the gold standard tool to audit the energy and environmental effects of transportation fuels such as ethanol and gasoline, indicates that corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gases by 50 percent compared to gasoline.
“ACE is focused on helping farmers and ethanol producers maximize their low carbon investments, and while no model can fully replicate real-world activities, GREET is equipped with the best available science on lifecycle GHG emissions of transportation fuels and technologies because the assumptions and estimates used in GREET are under constant peer review and updates to the model occur annually.”
The legislation was cosponsored by U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
