A decade later, RFS results are in

Energy researchers and anti-hunger advocates don’t often tackle the same policy issues, yet when it comes to Renewable Fuel Standard — which mandates that increasing volumes of ethanol be blended into the U.S. fuel supply — we find ourselves very much aligned on the urgent need for change. Cultivating corn to be transformed into ethanol to meet RFS blending requirements has resulted in land-use change that increases greenhouse gas emissions and leads to increased hunger — not just in America, but worldwide.

Presidential hopefuls are taking a stand against the policy in response to these and other negative impacts of the RFS (as raised by boaters, free-market and consumer advocates, livestock farmers and more). The policy’s consequences are so overt that candidates can call for its demise and still win big in the Corn Belt — the heart of the ethanol industry.

{mosads}In 2005, when Congress first passed the Renewable Fuel Standard, the hope was that replacing gasoline with renewable fuel would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Theory had it that biofuels such as corn-based ethanol were an answer to America’s energy challenge. But in practice — with a full decade’s worth of data on the policy’s effects — the results fall far from those expectations. Despite the good intentions on which the policy was founded, science shows that the RFS harms the environment and is undermining food security. 

One impact of the RFS unforeseen by many, including past environmental advocates for the policy, is increasing GHG emissions resulting from land-use change. When grassland or forests are converted into cropland large amounts of carbon that was previously sequestered is released into the air. These land-use change emissions were not factored into lifecycle analyses that justified the RFS. What’s worse, under typical crop rotations, corn ethanol’s net GHG emissions could be as much as 70 percent higher than those of gasoline even before counting the emissions due to indirect land-use change. Such findings, based on real-world farm data, refute the presumption that renewable fuels are inherently carbon neutral, a myth that bolstered initial support for the RFS and underpinned the computer modeling used to claim that corn ethanol is good for the environment.

Climate change is making it more difficult to produce food in ecosystems around the world, and instead of helping mitigate emissions contributing to this problem, corn ethanol could actually be making it worse. Additionally, demand for ethanol spurred by the RFS is transforming agricultural practices and threatening access to healthy food worldwide. Biofuel production incentivizes land grabs, forcing small farmers from their land — traditionally used to grow multiple food crops — to make way for massive mono-crop plantations to feed the ethanol mandate. In losing their land rights, small farmers lose their investment in the future, and in some cases, a part of their cultural identities. This displacement jeopardizes the livelihoods and food security of not only farmers and their families, but entire communities who benefit from local farms. 

As concerns about both the climate and the food needs of a growing world population mount, the RFS — with is far-reaching, adverse impacts — is a prime candidate for policy reform. The demand that this “good in theory” program has created for corn to produce ethanol is increasing GHG emissions while simultaneously driving small farmers off of their land. It’s time for policymakers to readdress the RFS and place credence in the science of today — not the failed hopes of ten years ago.

DeCicco is a research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute. Stone is a policy analyst at ActionAid USA. Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard, in which both DeCicco and Stone testified.