WASHINGTON - The United States will not meet Congress' mandate to produce more ethanol from waste products over the next 15 years, resulting in an overall shortfall in ethanol production requirements contained in a new energy law, a government forecaster said Tuesday.
The new energy law requires the United States to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels a year by 2022 to help stretch gasoline supplies and reduce oil imports.
But only 32.5 billion gallons of the renewable fuels standard (RFS) will be met by the target date, said Guy Caruso, who heads the US Energy Information Administration. The shortfall will come from a smaller volume of ethanol made from cellulosic sources such as wood chips, switchgrass and other agricultural and forest waste than the law envisions, Caruso told the Senate Energy Committee.
As result, he said the government will have to issue waivers on the mandate to ethanol producers in the years ahead.
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