NOTE

Date:		March 5, 2007

Subject: 	RFS Industry Characterization – Ethanol Production

From:		Julie Boledovich

		Assessment and Standards Division

		U.S. EPA Office of Transportation & Air Quality

To:		EPA Air Docket OAR-2005-0161

	For the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) rulemaking, we conducted an
assessment of U.S. ethanol production to quantify plant capacity by
region and understand operational variation (e.g., differences in
feedstocks, processing technology, plant energy sources, etc.).  In
additional to operational plants, we considered under construction and
planned ethanol plants/expansion projects.  For our analysis, we defined
“planned” projects as those which had completed permitting,
fundraising/financing, and had builders assigned with definitive
construction timelines as of October 16, 2006.  Our analysis was
completed at this time so it could be considered in subsequent RFS
analyses (e.g., E&C, agricultural impacts, etc.).  Although the
rapidly-growing ethanol industry has since expanded, we believe our
assessment of current/future ethanol production is still directionally
accurate.

	In Section VI of the Preamble as well as RIA Section 2.1, we present a
summary of our ethanol production findings.  Here we present a more
detailed list of the actual plants we considered (listed alphabetically
by plant/company name).  

	 



