Jeff Broin, the chairman of Growth Energy, addresses the group’s Executive Leadership Forum on Thursday in Phoenix. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)


PHOENIX — Ethanol prices may be down, but Jeff Broin, the chairman of Growth Energy and Tom Buis, the CEO, chose to focus on their organization’s accomplishments in 2014 in their annual report to the membership here on Thursday.

Recalling better times last year, Broin said, “Talk about 2014 — it was a historic year. We enjoyed margins we hadn’t enjoyed in a long time.”

Of the Environmental Protection Agency’s early proposal to reduce the volumetric requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard, Broin said, “We were successful in fighting back on the volumetric requirements.”

The Obama administration “broke a promise by backtracking,” but he added, “We said ‘this is unacceptable,’ we organized, we activated.”

Opponents used “every trick in the book” to try to reduce the RFS but EPA pulled back on its proposal, Broin noted.

In addition, Growth Energy made progress in its attempt to get E15 fuel accepted, he said.

In Chicago, he noted, a proposed ordinance would require gasoline stations to offer E15. The proposed requirement, Broin said, would allow Chicagoans to purchase “a fuel grown right outside their city.”

Buis, in his speech, noted that Chicago had been the first city to ban lead in gasoline, the first to ban the additive MTBE, and “hopefully they will be the first city in the nation that allows every consumer to make the choice to buy E15 at the pump.”

“We are in a battle, make no mistake,” Broin said. “This is a war between ethanol and oil. It is bigger — a war between agriculture and oil. All farmers need to fight on this. It is a war we cannot lose. The world is depending on us.“

Broin and Buis said they determined to win acceptance of E15.

“We have to work with retailers and leverage our NASCAR relationship,” Broin said. “Some have thought about giving up, but we can’t. E15 is on the precipice of becoming an accepted fuel.”

Tom Buis
Buis also noted that Growth Energy is one of the sponsors of programs at the Iowa Ag Summit on March 7 at which 11 Republican presidential candidates will speak.

“One area where we have not stepped up is getting to candidates,” Buis said, signaling that era will come to an end.

“In Iowa where every 30 miles you have an ethanol plant and every 30 inches a corn plant, every 30 minutes you have a presidential contender,” he said.

Farmers should not find it acceptable, Buis said, if a candidate says, “ ‘I am not in favor of the RFS, but with you on other things.’ We will say what has driven the farm economy, what has allowed farmers to create jobs?”

“Washington is not dominated by who has the best policy ideas, but who has the best politics,” he said.

The summit, Buis said, “is a candidate to grab those candidates’ attention.”

He said it bothers him that the United States is becoming “a nation of naysaysers.”

Buis said that If Lincoln had listened to the naysayers, the interstate railroad would never have been built, and if Eisenhower had listened to them the interstate highway system wouldn’t have been built and if Reagan had listened to them he never would have told the Soviets in Germany, “tear down that wall.”

Buis recalled that ethanol producers have previously told President Barack Obama, “Tear down that blend wall.”

“We’re still waiting Mr. President,” Buis said. “We need your help.”