 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Dan Versetti, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Welcome back to part two of our online briefing mini-series about rural communities, climate, and COVID-19 recovery. Today we will learn about how the coronavirus outbreak has affected the bioeconomy and what that means for the economic and environmental benefits we derive from biofuels and other products. If you weren't able to join us yesterday, we heard an update from three panelists about on-bill financing programs for home energy efficiency improvements in South Carolina. Tomorrow we will consider the dual threat of natural disasters during a time of a major public health crisis, the COVID-19 outbreak. If you need to catch up or register for tomorrow, you can visit www.esa.org. There you'll find an archived webcast and presentation materials. And while you're there, please take a moment to sign up for our Climate Change Solutions newsletter, which is a great way to stay informed about our briefing and other educational and informative resources. Yesterday, in my introduction, I mentioned that EESI is long-standing commitment to better understanding the impacts of climate change on rural areas. And those impacts are different than those affecting urban areas. At EESI, we like to focus on solutions. And again, approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation are different depending on the geography and demographics of where you are. Today we will discuss the potential of biofuels. Biofuels are sourced from rural areas, but their potential benefits extend to cities and towns that's a well-rounded climate solution. As the U.S. transportation sector undergoes a longer-term zero-carbon transition, biofuels can be used to reduce emissions while supporting rural economies and contributing to improved air and water quality throughout the country. It sounds like a cliche, but biofuels represent a win-win-win climate change solution. The first win is economic. Biofuels provide economic development opportunities in low-population areas where feedstocks are grown, harvested, and processed, all of which compares favorably to costly and unsustainable fossil fuel extraction. The second win is environmental. Life-cycle carbon emissions from biofuels are about 80 percent lower than those from fossil fuels. We'll need liquid fuels for ground transport for some time, and we'll need liquid fuels for air travel for some time longer. Increased use of biofuels would reduce emissions from the transportation sector, which is currently the largest slice of the greenhouse gas pollution pie. The third is especially relevant in present circumstances, public health. COVID-19 takes aim at our lungs, which are already exposed to harmful particulate pollutants and aromatics, which are nasty, carcinogenic gasoline additives. If we increased the use of biofuels in our cars and trucks, we could do without gasoline and aromatics, and there would be healthier air for everyone to breathe. At a time when we should be doing everything possible to improve the health of the public, as you listen to our panelists today, I encourage you to consider how we want to recover to change our old, unhelpful ways of doing things for the better. Why go back to heavily subsidized fossil fuel consumption when we have a better alternative choice? As a win-win-win climate solution, biofuels can and should be part of that new way of doing things. One last bit of logistics before we turn to our panelists. Because we are online today, I cannot call on you if you have a question. So please follow EESI on Twitter at EESI online and send in your questions that way. You can also send an email to EESI at EESI.org. We will draw from your questions submissions after we hear from our panelists during our Q&A session. And let me welcome our first panelist, Patty Judge. Patty served two terms in the Iowa Senate. She also served as Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture, where she worked tirelessly to promote renewable fuels, ethanol, and biodiesel in particular. Under her leadership, renewable energy grew to become an integral part of Iowa's economy. She continued to work for the people of Iowa as a Lieutenant Governor from 2006 through 2010. And in 2017, she founded Focus on Rule America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to examining and addressing the problems of the most rural parts of the country. Patty, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm looking forward to your presentation. Well, thank you so much for inviting me to be with you today. It's a real honor. I will start by saying, as you just heard, I'm now working with a nonprofit group that is called Focus on Rule America. We were founded after the 2016 elections when we were very much aware of some significant changes in voting and thinking in the rural parts of not just Iowa, but across the Midwest, Rust Belt. We wanted to take a look at what was driving voting decisions in rural America and what was going on. Why are the population continuing to decline? What issues do rural voters find important? We have done a considerable amount of research and polling on issues in rural America, trying to look at trends and policy drivers. We've worked with candidates and policymakers. Recently, we were very much involved in the Iowa caucuses, the many presidential campaigns that came to the state. We helped them draft rural plans. Actually, we helped draft plans for 15 different candidates, including Vice President. It was easy for us through our research to identify the top issues in rural Iowa and rural America. And the first, of course, is a good job. Beyond having that good job, rural people are concerned about having available and affordable health care, and they're concerned that their education system in rural communities is robust, preparing young people for the future. But again, I want to say that the first and the beginning and the end is, of course, a good job. Slide three, Katie. We know that rural communities feed and fuel our world. We also know that it is critically important to add value to agricultural products. Agriculture has changed over the years. Certainly changed in even in my lifetime of living and working on an Iowa farm. We are a commodity driven industry at this point in time and in order to add value to that commodity crop, we really need to be thinking outside the box. When we do that, we not only put additional dollars in the pocket of farmers, but we also create good jobs in rural communities. And the ethanol plants, the biofuel industry has really been good for rural America. It is providing good jobs and money to spend on on Main Street. And it seems like we've been talking about this and and trying to grow this industry for many, many years, but we do know that today, it is an important part of many, many rural communities. Besides the opportunity to provide for us some cleaner fuel. We have really struggled over the last few years. You know, farm income is down. And that's not a good thing. One of the issues that makes it very difficult to attract and retain good jobs and industries in rural America is the lack of high speed internet hookup. For many of you, I'm sure it would seems impossible to think that that high speed is not available in many places, but but it isn't. And we've talked for years about how to do that, but we never seem to be able to get that that to happen. Unfortunately, crumbling housing stock, crumbling highways and bridges, hospital closures, school consolidation, all of those. Those things add to the economic pain that rural America is feeling right now. Next slide please. This graph shows you that the net farm income is down almost by half compared to what it was in 2013. And that is just incredibly difficult for rural communities when farm income drops of the farm. Industry does not have money to spend on Main Street and and that is that is the bread and butter for rural communities. So we were really kind of on the ropes before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. We really view this here in the heartland as a triple whammy. We had the trade wars, which, you know, are really unfortunate and, in my opinion, unnecessary that it became agriculture took a real hit because of that. We followed that up with some devastating floods that further crippled agriculture. And the third thing that happened even before the pandemic is EPA's decision to grant small refinery waivers from mandated ethanol blending. So that was about all of the sucker punches that we could stand. And then we followed that up with the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethanol really adds to the economy in 2018. We're looking over 300,000 direct and indirect jobs. We're looking at $45 billion to GDP and 24 billion household incomes. That's a lot of money. And so when that is not holding true, it creates serious problems here in the heartland. Another issue that has been extremely hard on us is the failure to implement RFS as it was written. If we had had the renewable fuel standard standing strong, we would have been in a much more comfortable place today. But as I said, we've known the last few years that the ethanol industry has been shaky and then COVID-19 came along and really destroyed the safety net. I want to say just a word about small refinery waivers because I think it's something that is a little difficult if you don't deal with it on a regular basis. These refinery waivers were designed to help small refineries to allow them to be exempted from mandated fuel blending requirements. And we all understand that. But what has happened over the years is that big oil industries like Chevron Mobile have used these waivers, been branded waivers. And that has really hurt the ethanol industry when the waiver issue was not started for that reason. In fact, in the last round of waivers that were granted, there were 31 waivers that accounted for over a billion dollars in blending exemption. Since 2016, more than 4 billion gallons of biofuel have been diverted from the market. That was even before, that was of course before the COVID-19 issue. Now the loss of market lessened fuel demand from the pandemic, which has been very severe. That has resulted in about 30 plants across the country that have been idled or closed. In addition, another 130 have reduced their production. So we are in a very serious situation with the ethanol industry today. Next slide. Rural Americans know what ethanol does for our communities. Our polling data tells us that they support leaders that invest in it. We need to keep that industry strong in order to keep rural communities strong. COVID-19 is having a devastating impact on the rural economy. Food prices are soaring even here in the bread basket. Especially meat prices, how farmers are waiting for some help. I just want to let all of you know that the price jump that you are seeing in meat in the grocery store across this country is in no way reflected in the live markets and what the farmers are receiving. Hacking plants of course have been a focal point, at least in our state in the Midwest. As places, as industries that have had large numbers of employees that have become ill and that has even resulted in the closing of a plant for a period of time. There are lots of problems in those plants as far as keeping workers safe. And we have to wonder if the best practices are being used to keep people safe and keep the production line going. We know that value-added agriculture is critical to a strong rural economy. We cannot survive here if we don't have some way to add dollars to our raw commodities. And we also, in the ethanol industry, need to be part of federal recovery efforts, which has been a problem so far. I just want to also say, though, that the biggest problem for farmers is always uncertainty. We need clear and certain directions. We have shown through the years that we are capable of adjusting, of changing, of finding solutions. But the uncertainty that surrounds us today is very difficult to deal with. We do need, in the fuel industry, we do need assistance from the CARES Act. We need money to flow into rural communities, rural businesses as quickly as possible. I really fear that some of those businesses that have been closed down now since in March will not find a way to open their doors again. I just wanted to mention, too, about rural hospitals because since 2005, 166 rural hospitals across the country have closed. And we know that a rural community without health care availability is one that is struggling and doomed to fail. Jobs leave, communities shrink when there is no health care available. So I just want to summarize a little bit. Health care facilities add value to farm income and products. They put revenue into good jobs and benefits for workers in rural America. Policies the administration can and should use today to help, first of all, implement the renewable fuel standard as it's written and intended. Second, set the renewable fuel volume obligations as written and attended and in the use of the unjust small refinery waivers. Ethanol facilities add value. They put good jobs and benefits for workers in rural America. They get very hard over the years. Again, particularly due to small refinery waivers. Every inch of value added agriculture economy puts money into small towns. They are still agriculture is the backbone of small towns across our country. And ethanol facilities are a shining example of what we can do in rural America by adding value to our agricultural products. And without them, without them, I see that our small towns will continue to to contract and business asleep. Thank you very much and I'll stand by for question. Thank you so much Patty for your presentation and speaking of questions. We will begin Q&A after our next panelist. Two quick reminders if you missed any of Patty's presentation, just as a reminder that there will be an archived webcast online www.esa.org. Also the presentation materials that Patty used will be made available as well. It'll take us a couple days, but check back and you'll also see a written summary that includes the Q&A and things like that. So if you have any questions, you can email us EESI at ESI.org or you can follow us on Twitter at ESI online. Our second panelist is Stefan Unash. Stefan is Managing Director of Lifecycle Associates, a consulting firm specializing in the analysis of fuel and clean energy technologies. Over the past 30 years, Stefan has supported state, federal and international efforts to examine the greenhouse gas impacts of conventional and alternative fuels, including California zero emission vehicle program and low carbon fuel standard. He has published over 80 studies for government agencies, as well as peer reviewed papers on alternative fuels and life cycle analysis. Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us today. Well, thank you. And I would like to give a presentation on the opportunities for biofuels and their effects on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. So first I will talk a little bit about what biofuels benefits are and then their role in air quality and greenhouse gas emissions and then how that might fit in some policies for rural development. First of all, we're all familiar with the fuel volumes for the RFS. The projected volumes have not panned out and we're not producing nearly the levels of cellulosic biofuels and what we primarily have is corn ethanol and oil based biodiesel and renewable diesel. There's also been a recent growth in biogas derived from dairies and landfills. Cellulosic fuels have really not panned out as projected and technically electricity and hydrogen could be generating D3 RINs under the RFS. And there's actually petitions sitting at EPA that are waiting to be acted on. So we actually have an opportunity to meet the RFS with many fuels, but let's see what their role is in air quality. So there's several factors having to do with alternative fuels that affect their air quality impacts. One is how clean they burn, but the other thing that people don't often think about is what do they avoid? So ethanol has a high octane number. Yes, that makes the vehicle operate more efficiently if it has a knock sensor, but also means that the oil refinery doesn't need to produce as much high octane product, lower intensity reformers, lower emissions from oil refining. The heat of vaporization, low sulfur, and distillation properties of ethanol also help with its hydrocarbon emissions. Renewable diesel has a very high octane number, 80 compared to 40. That means it runs well in a diesel engine. And again, the oil refinery doesn't need to work as hard to meet diesel specifications, to meet stringent California requirements. And this fuel also has virtually essentially no aromatics and zero sulfur. Similarly, biodiesel is along those same lines and biogas. Biogas is used by book and claim to make CNG. But using biogas actually helps landfills avoid flaring or helps them not have to use an internal combustion engine, which would have high NOX emissions. It avoids dairies and lagoons having methane emissions. And then finally, of course, electricity and hydrogen, which are all potentially derived from biogas or other renewables, have zero emissions in the local area. We did a study that looked at the toxic air contaminant effects of ethanol. And it's a very complicated matter because it depends not only on the properties of the ethanol, but the components that are blended into gasoline. And this chart here compares 5.7% ethanol with higher level ethanol blends. And it shows the weighted toxics. So basically, ethanol is displacing benzene and olefins, which are precursors of 1,3-butadiene. And these here are weighted by their cancer-causing potential. So basically, ethanol helps reduce cancer-causing components. And it's a complicated subject because it really depends on how you blend the gasoline, and ethanol helps you make cleaner gasoline. Here's an interesting chart. Perhaps it demonstrates that correlation is not causation, but it does show that over the past several decades, with the introduction of reformulated gasoline, phase 2 gasoline, and low sulfur, as well as ethanol, ozone levels have been declining as ethanol levels have increased in our gasoline to 10%, the 10% that we have today, and we have the potential to go to 15%. Unfortunately, we're losing our ability to operate flexible-fueled vehicles on ethanol because the incentive structure has changed for those vehicles. So a little bit about greenhouse gas emissions. As we're probably aware, you need to look at greenhouse gas emissions on a well-to-wheel or farm-to-wheel basis. Because if you look at ethanol, it has the same carbon dioxide emissions per mild-riven as does gasoline, give or take small changes in efficiency. However, the ethanol was recently removed from the air, which is the biogenic uptake. So you need to count all of these on a life-cycle basis. Similarly, for electric vehicles, those cars produce zero emissions as they're driving, so certainly you need to count them on a life-cycle basis. But first, let's look at petroleum. Petroleum includes the emissions from the car, the bottom blue bars, as well as all of the emissions in a life-cycle. There's the crude oil production, which depends on different production types. Here we have thermal oil recovery, oil produced from offshore wells in Nigeria, which flare a lot of oil, heavy oil which requires thermal energy, and refining. And believe it or not, we even get crude oil from regions in the world where we have to expend our money to fly airplanes to fly over the Middle East to protect our petroleum resources. And that adds about 4% to the greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline produced from such conflict zones. Now, when you look at ethanol, ethanol takes carbon dioxide recently removed from the air. We call that short-cycle carbon and turns it into corn, which produces animal feed, corn oil, ethanol. And there's also a component which analysts call indirect land use conversion, so you could take into account the opportunity cost of the land to grow something else. There's a lot of factors that weigh into the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol. And this shows, this chart here shows how the thinking has evolved over the past 10 years. And these values are actually the basis for regulations that affect how ethanol producers generate revenue either under the renewable fuel standard or the California low-carbon fuel standard. So first, the green bars show a declining use of fertilizer over time. So this California Green 1.8B, this was about a 2009 model data. And now we have the most recent data in 2019 from Argonne National Lab. There's been a steady decline in the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that's used to grow corn. Also, there's been changes in how we conduct the life-cycle analysis, a better understanding of methane emissions from natural gas, a change in the electricity grid, a change in refinement and indirect land use conversion, and even better thinking on co-product credits. So today, the best thinking shows that about corn ethanol, just the ethanol alone, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 50% compared to petroleum gasoline. So all of these considerations on greenhouse gas emissions have led to low-carbon fuel programs. You know, why even have a low-carbon fuel program? Why don't a cap-and-trade program solve everything? Well, the problem is, transportation is a significant portion of our greenhouse gas emissions. And having a cap-and-trade program with the prices that are in today's cap-and-trade program would really not do that much to incent someone from not driving to get a cup of coffee in a military vehicle. We drive big cars. Some people have good reasons for having big cars. And a cap-and-trade type pricing, which allows for forestry and things like that, is not going to cause advanced biofuels, fish or truck diesel, battery-electric vehicles to be built. So that's why we have a low-carbon fuel program in California and in other states. And it's being considered that way. And in such a program, it's a market-based program with a declining standard. So that gray line shows the declining standard in California. It's headed to a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. And the obligated parties or the fuel producers need to either reduce their emissions, which is challenging because 70% of the emissions are in the gasoline itself, or they need to buy alternative fuels, and the lowest carbon options can participate. This is one advantage over the RFS, which has predetermined buckets. And corn ethanol can never become better than a D6 biofuel under the RFS. So mechanisms like the low-carbon fuel standard are attractive. However, they sort of leave out rural America. There's a lot of benefits that could be had at the farm level. No-till farming, low-nitrogen release, farming practices can improve the greenhouse gas emissions from corn ethanol. But currently, these aren't incorporated into any fuel programs. Also, energy crops. Of course, we do utilize manure to make CNG, converting crops and forests to advanced biofuels or materials. These are all options. And we could even consider land restoration. Farmers have land, and there's land around the margins, which could be used to absorb runoff. Now, farmers can't take this land and simply set it aside. They need to make a living. But with the value of carbon emissions, why not look at how some of this income could be helped to reduce emissions at the farm level? And here, this chart shows basically the complexity of certification programs and the value of the greenhouse gas emissions. So the highest value you can achieve is to get a grant from the government on a really small scale. That's not really a large volume choice. But the low-carbon fuel standard is paying $200 per ton of CO2 reductions. Cap and trade programs are one-tenth of that. And voluntary programs are getting about $5 a ton. There must be some way to harmonize farm-level activities so that activities such as habitat restoration or no-till farming that stores carbon in the soil could be introduced as a benefit and allow some of the revenue to flow to the farms. Perhaps not at the $200 per ton level, but certainly there's some zone in here that provides opportunities that can help store carbon as well as help the farmer. So we've learned a lot of lessons from these low-carbon fuel programs. One of them is having equity in greenhouse gas reductions is important. Under the low-carbon fuel standard, fuel producers get credits for having lower emissions. So if you take your ethanol plant and install an anaerobic digester, you get paid much more money under the LCFS than you would under the RFS, which simply would treat the ethanol as a D6 RIN. So there's flexibility in adopting new technologies. Also, I work for a lot of companies that are examining investment options. Investors are willing to look at the future revenue from the LCFS, whereas there's a lot of uncertainty with the RFS. So this mechanism, having a stable mechanism where a policy persists is very important. And this has enabled the adoption of new technology. Biogas from dairies has certainly grown. Almost all of the tallow and used cooking oil is headed towards renewable diesel as well as corn oil. And there's been significant investments in cellulosic ethanol as well as fish or trout jet fuels and certainly electrification. Just look at Tesla's stock price. So what can we do in the future? There's a couple of things. We could support E15. We could bring back the flexible fuel vehicle. The fewer and fewer of these are being built and bring it back as a high octane plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. So that way you can benefit from having an electrified vehicle and you can bring the electric technology into larger vehicles. So in rural areas, you need pickup trucks. You need larger vehicles. And if it were a plug-in hybrid, you could enable still getting most of your miles on electricity with a smaller battery. Add RINs for hydrogen electricity, very easy. Many developers are working on biomass to jet. We know they're going to succeed. Enable innovations. One of my favorites is manure by wire. Allow ethanol plants to get better credits by enabling biogas to come in with electricity credits, for example, and consider some of these farm level benefits such as low emission farming and habitat restoration. There's certainly a lot to do at the farm level that can tie in with low carbon programs and I look forward to an interesting future. Great. Thanks so much for a great presentation. You had a lot of charts in your presentation. Thank you for those. Lots of good stuff. If anyone has a need to sort of go into greater depth or review those slides, just as a reminder, in addition to an archived webcast, the slides and materials will be made available online. And Steph, and hopefully included as contact information at the end of this presentation too. We are now going to transition to Q&A and we have lots of time for that. If you have questions out there in the audience, you can follow us on Twitter and ask us questions that way. You can also send us an email, EESI at EESI.org, and some of you are doing that. But I am going to introduce my colleague Amber Todorov. You might remember Amber. She was my co-moderator for our climate adaptation data briefing series back a couple months, somehow a couple months ago. So Amber, welcome. Thanks for all your help with today's briefing and I'll let you kick it off with Q&A. Thanks a lot, Dan. And thanks to both of our presenters today. These are really interesting discussions and I definitely learned a lot. So this question's for Stefan, but either of you could answer, Patty, you probably have some insight too. What are the misconceptions held by the public that you feel are most troubling and want to get corrected in terms of ethanol and bile pools? Well, one is that it has no criteria pollutant benefits. It's much more complicated than that. The effect of octane and the ability to make low carbon, low emission gasoline are very integrated. And then the other conception is just that corn ethanol is bad. If you look at corn ethanol compared to other biofuels, there's a range of carbon intensity, greenhouse gas emission values. And if you want manure by wire, you could knock the carbon intensity of corn ethanol down by 20% simply if you allowed corn ethanol plants to invest in dairy digesters or manure digesters that make electric power that otherwise would never happen unless they had that investment. So there's lots of options and corn ethanol is reducing greenhouse gas emissions just like other biofuels. I might add in here something Amber. One of the arguments that we heard over and over during the caucus season when we had over 21 Democratic candidates for president plus full staffs and we were trying to talk about ethanol, we're trying to talk about farming, we're talking about rural opportunity. And many times I still heard the food versus fuel argument that somehow we were taking food away from American citizens because we were turning it into fuel instead. And we would have to stop in and have people understand that first of all, the crop is what we call number two yellow corn. It is not food, human food, it's livestock feed. And the great thing about ethanol production is that through the process of creating the ethanol, they extract the sugar and turn that into ethanol, but it leaves a high quality livestock feed. And so there really is not a great deal of waste and that food is used by livestock producers all over actually all over the world anymore as a high quality food. On that note, an acre of land making corn for ethanol makes as much animal feed as an acre of soybeans. Cool. That's really good to know. Thank you very much. So this one's for Patty. In one of your slides you said how in the spring of 2019 biofuel production buffered impact of trade disputes. Could you elaborate more on that? I'm sorry, I mean I say that again Amber. On one of your slides you said last year's trade disputes are biofuel production helped buffer the impact of trade disputes. Could you elaborate more on that? Well of course the trade disputes were over moving corn and soybeans both into international markets and we rely a great deal in the corn industry in moving that product internationally. And when we had embargoes placed on us, trade tariffs became very difficult and we got caught up in that with biofuels and it was really unfortunate. But they did suffer because of our inability to move ethanol across into our into normal markets. Thanks. I am going to give in to the questions that are coming in from our audience and thank you to those who are sending us questions. We're getting lots of questions today. A lot of people find this very interesting. The first one I think is for both of you, how would you weigh the constraints, the technological or technical versus policy constraints that are preventing biofuels from being more widespread, from being a more mainstream vehicle fuel? How would you balance those? Is it mostly a technical or technological or is it mostly a policy constraint that's preventing more widespread use? Well the policy opportunities are fantastic. So for example in the case of D3 RINs for biogas, the incentive has been very generous and perhaps it's a little bit too generous considering that the technology was intended to make cellulosic biofuels. So the problem is that the federal government hasn't stuck with it. There is an opportunity to change the RVO and as you make the requirement lower, the incentive effectively is not as strong. So the incentives work. I talk to clients every day who have me analyze what are the changes they can make to a corn ethanol plant to get a lower carbon intensity score and they are acting on these incentives and they do work, but they need to be persistent, persistent enough that investors will believe they'll be around for 10 years. And I might just add, I might add on to that. I totally agree with with Stefan's comments, but I think one of the things that we off times forget is that how new this industry is. A few years ago, 30, 40 years ago it did not exist. And so it has gone through growing pains like any industry, startup industry, some things work, some things haven't worked. It takes some diligence. It takes, as Stefan said, sticking with a program. And one of the programs that is taking a while to get to a commercial point is cellulosic ethanol. And we all still have great hopes that that's going to happen. I think it will. But again, we need the research, we need the incentives and we need time. Before I send it back to Amber, just a quick follow up. Do you think the public health benefits, the air quality, water quality benefits that are becoming more on people's minds during the coronavirus outbreak? Do you think those public health imperatives will help sort of shift that dynamic and maybe encourage greater use of biofuels? Well, I would like to think so. Another one of the arguments that we heard last winter, of course, was that we have a role to play in air pollution. And I think some of the data that was being used is old and that we really are on the right track to cut emissions. And we certainly have a role in the future doing that. I'd be interested in Stefan's thoughts on that. Yeah, I think the air quality effects are largely a co-benefit. Certainly producing renewable diesel with a high C10 and zero sulfur makes it easier to sell, but these low carbon policies are monetizing the fuels based on their greenhouse gas emissions. You have regulations on refineries and fuels and they're not fuel. Everyone's able to participate on what's effectively a level playing field. However, where we really need help is with higher ethanol blends. There shouldn't be obstacles to going to E15. And we really should consider plug-in hybrid E85 vehicles. This is a problem because the folks who would like a perfect solution are the enemy of the good. I don't know if we're going to be able to have pickup trucks and larger vehicles with a 400 mile range that have to haul horse trailers, be dedicated battery vehicles. And there are a lot of them in this country and why not have them run on renewable fuel and get down to over 80% greenhouse gas reductions all of the time. Thanks. Amber, I'll turn it back over to you. Patty, this is for you. Given your experiences, are there things you think that state secretaries of agriculture could do to help the public and policymakers better understand the role of health, environmental and economic benefits of biofuels? Well, definitely, again, I want to say that this is a fledgling industry by industry standards. I was amazed when I was Secretary of Agriculture in the lack of good information that even Iowans who live next door to a corn field and or an ethanol plant seem to have. So we have a lot of work and using the elected offices of the Secretary of Agriculture and US congressmen, the Iowa legislators, all of us have sort of a built-in bully pulpit. We have an opportunity to tell that story and I think that we need to do that. I have seen a big change. I will tell you that when we started trying to promote ethanol, I went on the Rotary Circuit at noon and I would challenge the Rotarians to buy a tank of ethanol and drive the car and tell me what they thought. And they would come back at me with it was going to ruin, it would ruin the car if they put ethanol in the tank. And so I told them the story and the story I'll tell you very quickly is my father who's now passed but lived to a good old age of 95 believed that ethanol was a terrible thing and that you should not ever ever put that in your car because it would in fact make it make your car quit running, ruin the motor. So I would take his car when I was home, I would take his car uptown and fill it up with ethanol. And I'd never told him and he was happy, the car ran fine and I was happy too. So we've come a long way since those days, but again the are our opposition, which are to be very blunt is is big oil. They would like us to disappear and they are well funded. They are vocal and they and they try constantly so we really have to keep working at spreading a good message of renewable fuel of all kinds because it is about the future and it is about good jobs and it is about a clean environment. What do you think it is new, as you said, so what are there other countries that are kind of on the vanguard on this that we could take, you know, some case study of Well, I mean, we're not the only country in the world that is creating renewable fuels and certainly what's definite to address that, but we have real competition for the ethanol industry, particularly in Brazil and and other a few other places. But again, other countries are are promoting their fuel. They are trying to establish good trade policies that allow that fuel to move and and I hope they're not spending as much time as we are trying to back back our opponents that are funded by big oil. Steven. Yeah, I work a lot on helping export ethanol. I've been to, you know, Mexico and all over the world. I think there's lots of opportunities there, but it is, you know, it is, you know, maddening when we've had a, you know, issues with petroleum supply, we have all of the, you know, pollution issues from petroleum that we ought to be able to use our own, you know, our own indigenous resources and, you know, more importantly, we've had laws on the books for 10 years. You know, the purpose of the law is to allow the investor to take the risk. And if it's really just a bait and switch game, it's not a policy. It's simply someone gets to take credit for writing a law that did nothing. And that's not the purpose of laws. It's supposed to be able, you're supposed to be able to allow investors to make multi, you know, $100 million risks. And then they're supposed, and then they're the guys who their problem is supposed to be, does the technology work? Not as the government going to change the RV, you know, based on a whim. And I may have just dithered off the question. Thanks. I'm going to go back to our questions that are coming in. This one came in from Twitter and I always like to try to make a special note to ask questions that come in from Twitter. So thanks. And this is for, this is a grab bag. So whichever of you has the answer, I'm not sure who to direct it to. What policy options exist to ensure farmers receive at least partial value upfront on co2 sequestration activities when it takes a little while it takes a little bit of time to verify that co2 permanence. Yes, this is challenging because some economists say that if you give farmers an extra, you know, let's just call it 20 cents a bushel, they'll simply compete it away and they will get nothing. However, if you if you ask the farmer, would you rather we give you 20 cents a bushel, or that we have an incentive that goes through the oil company that then goes to the ethanol plant that then trickles down to you. I'm sure they would prefer the former. So there's a potential source of revenue from low carbon programs, and it can fund activities that are beneficial. Some of these activities are already occurring. So let's say, you know, maybe, you know, a very high fraction of farmers have no chill farming. So, you know, if we paid 20% of the farmers to who are already doing no till to do no till that's not going to have a big effect. So the policy has to be sorted out that it will result in some higher level of additionality. But there are mechanisms available. And also, you know, farmers will never be able to come up with the same level of evidence as an ethanol plant. You're buying thousands of bags of fertilizer, billions of grains of corn, you know, can you track every single one of those. One of those, like you do a receipt for an ethanol plant, it's not that easy, but it's clear when farmers are employing practices that reduce nitrogen emissions. You know, some of these practices cost more to monitor. And, you know, perhaps, you know, take it as an initial step to pay for the monitoring and to pay for activities that have a clear incremental cost. But this can be sorted out. And there's 20 pedograms, which is millions and millions of tons of carbon that potentially could be stored in the soil over the next several decades. And we need to get to work on that. All right, so I have one last question. We hear about cities and municipalities adopting biofuel compatible buses or other vehicles for their fleets. Is there one city in particular that you think is doing a really great job at this or multiple cities. I really am not familiar with what but all the city what cities are doing. I know that there have been a lot a lot of tests done particularly with biofuel and buses across in cities across the country. I think most of those show that that there's real good possibility of reducing emissions by by using biofuel. I and again, I would I want to echo what what Stephen said about being able to use higher blends if moving from 10 to 15% or beyond is is really I think very will be very beneficial in our to the to the environment as we as we Americans resume our driving that that we enjoy so much and we've kind of put on hold for the last few months. In California, a lot of bus fleets have requirements to use renewable diesel. And that's a lot of fuel so I don't know exactly if they have the same access to do that for ethanol or frankly whether they even would. However, in the Midwest, I think an 85 F F V would make a dandy police car. And there's many opportunities. There's many opportunities for for, you know, local governments to use to use 85 to purchase the 85 vehicles and and there potentially could be cost savings because of the ability of the ethanol plant to sell locally. Well, thank you so much for that. And your answer reminded me of Patty's sort of switcheroo story reminded me of those old taster choice taster's choice commercials where we secretly replaced your gasoline with 85 maybe that should be something that we worked on. I'm local officials would probably frown upon that, but I, you know, still think there's a kernel there for marketing purposes. Patty step and thank you so much for joining us today and making your presentations. And we're even keeping you over the hour mark now we're at 301 but thank you so much for your presentations it really means a lot to everyone to DSI free to take time out of your day to join us and help educate policymakers in the public about biofuels rule and the coronavirus outbreak. So thank you very much. Before we conclude, let me thank Amber for joining me today. Thank all of ESI who had a hand in today. So I'm just going to go on and just look at the staff page at ESI.org and say oh everyone had something to do with today's briefing which is more or less the case. One last thing before we conclude. conclude while you're visiting EESI.org, looking at the staff page saying, oh, all of those people had so much to do with today's briefing, it would be really helpful if you would take a few moments to take our survey. We really pay a lot of attention to the responses that we get and it helps us improve our offerings also just to make sure that what we're doing is what we need to be doing and we really appreciate everyone's time that you spend filling out that survey. So thank you very much, apologies for going a minute or two past the hour, but this was just such a great presentation and Q&A, sometimes the temptation to go long is just too much. So thanks everyone for joining us, hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday and we'll see you tomorrow for the final installment of our mini-series looking at natural disasters in the public health crisis, thanks so much.