At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing this morning, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) pressed Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, about the Biden administration’s concerning agenda in prioritizing electric vehicles (EV) over clean renewable fuels, stressing that their plan “will only make us more dependent on those foreign adversaries” who control the key raw materials used to produce them. In describing America’s ability to be energy independent in part through the use of clean biofuel, Ernst reiterated that “energy security is national security.”
Ernst particularly took issue with the administration’s definition of EVs as “zero emissions” vehicles while defining biofuel-powered vehicles as “low emissions,” even though EVs have a “significant greenhouse gas footprint” when taking stock of the environmentally harmful process involved in obtaining their parts, as well as their assembly and their use of electricity generated from nonrenewable and carbon-based sources.
Ernst has continuously stressed to the Biden administration the importance of clean biofuel for America’s energy needs, and has reminded President Biden of the promises he made to Iowans on the campaign trail about supposedly supporting our state’s renewable fuels. At an EPW hearing last month, Ernst stuck up for Iowa farmers and laid out the facts as to why the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is critical to America’s national security and for consumer access to affordable, homegrown, clean-burning biofuel today and in the future.
