The EPA is floating a trial balloon of maintaining the 2020 RVOs for 2021 and 2022. In April, a group of Senators urged EPA to add 500 million gallons to the ethanol RVO to amend for the 2016 court case that ruled the EPA improperly waived that amount, and to “increase biodiesel, advanced, and cellulosic volumes.” The proposed rule is typically published sometime in the May-June-July timeframe. It is then open for comments, with the final rule published by the statutory deadline of 30 November and it goes into effect the following year. Last May, EPA sent proposed required volume obligations (RVOs) for 2021 to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and sign-off before they were published for comment. &n...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.