Scott Weishaar - oral testimony to the House Agriculture Committee - 5/18/10

Ethanol producers each year produce more renewable fuel more efficiently, but the growing alternative to oil industry dominance needs bold policy to help offset more foreign oil imports in the future, POET Vice President for Commercial Development Scott Weishaar told the House Agriculture Committee today.

Weishaar testified at the committee’s field hearing today at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Weishaar said the ethanol industry has become a legitimate threat to Big Oil. Washington deserves credit for envisioning that future when it created positive policies such as the Renewable Fuels Standard.

“With your help, we can continue this progress,” he said. “We have the natural resources, the ingenuity and the technology to reach our nation’s goal of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel produced per year by the year 2022.”

Four important actions will help achieve this:

1. Increase the base blend allowed in today’s standard vehicles from 10 percent to 15 percent ethanol.
2. Mandate that all new vehicles purchased in the U.S. are flex fuel.
3. Provide incentives for installation of blender pumps, which can dispense a wide range of ethanol blends and allow greater choice for consumers.
4. Support cellulosic development through loan guarantees, a long-term extension of the cellulosic ethanol tax credit and incentives for farmers to offset risk in providing new biomass feedstock.

These actions will place clean, renewable ethanol in a position to challenge oil as the dominant fuel for America and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, especially in rural areas.

“With your help, we will take ethanol to new heights and provide a real competitor to foreign oil,” Weishaar said.

Weishaar’s testimony is available on POET’s website.

About POET
POET, the largest ethanol producer in the world, is a leader in biorefining through its efficient, vertically integrated approach to production. The 22-year-old company produces more than 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol and 9 billion pounds of high-protein animal feed annually from 26 production facilities nationwide. POET also operates a pilot-scale cellulosic ethanol plant, which uses corn cobs as feedstock, and will commercialize the process in Emmetsburg, Iowa. For more information, visit http://www.poet.com.

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