The Environmental Protection Agency will release its recommendations for the amount of ethanol that is blended into gasoline in coming days.
Somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of gasoline is currently blended with corn-based ethanol, and the ethanol industry has been seen as an economic boon for the state of Indiana, supporting an estimated 4,100 jobs in the state.
But members of both houses of Congress have introduced legislation to completely scrap the Renewable Fuel Standard, which among other things, dictates how much ethanol is blended into gasoline.
Congress adopted the standard a decade ago. Peter Schubert is the Director for the Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI, and he says the recent ads attacking the standard come from biased sources.
"If you look at the other people who are opposed to this renewable fuel standard, they are largely people that are competing with that, and they would be inconvenienced by a wider adoption of it," said Schubert.
But the attacks the standard is facing from lawmakers and the oil industry aren't the only obstacle.
Technological challenges of creating better biofuels like cellulosic ethanol have led to additional criticism.
"The problem that I think the industry has faced is that, there was an anticipation that the transition from corn-based ethanol to second generation biofuels would happen much faster than it has," said Jesse Kharbanda, the Executive Director of the Hoosier Environmental Council.
Cellulosic ethanol is much more efficient that traditional corn-based ethanol, however, it's also more expensive and tougher to produce.
While there are several ethanol plants in Indiana, the Hoosier state does not have any cellulosic ethanol production plants.
While the debate over a transition from traditional ethanol to cellulosic ethanol is valid, Ken Parrent, the Director of Biofuels for the Indiana Corn Marketing Council says that lawmakers trying to repeal the RFS have had a negative impact on the research and development of new biofuels.
"The uncertainty over the renewable fuel standard is limiting investment both in research and development, and construction of these plants," said Parrent.
The RFS is also under fire from the Center for Regulatory Solutions, who put out a report claiming the RFS has cost the state of Illinois $12 billion in GDP growth by 2024.
