Ethanol producer calls for overhaul of country’s renewable energy policy

The head of the third largest U.S. corn-ethanol producer told Senate lawmakers Tuesday the country’s renewable energy policy should be scrapped and rewritten – the latest attack on the future of the controversial mandate. Bill Klesse, chief executive of Valero Energy Corp., told a Senate panel the Renewable Fuel Standard – an 8-year-old law that requires refiners to produce alternative fuels to help reduce the country’s dependence on foreign energy – is “out of control” and needs to be overhauled to better reflect today’s marketplace. “We support and believe that ethanol will be part of the fuel mix in this country, but the RFS is broken,” Klesse told members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “We should repeal it and start over. The situation has completely changed.”  Read More