EPA

The Spanish energy company Abengoa opened the world's largest cellulosic refinery in Hugoton, about 90 miles southwest of Dodge City, Kansas, said Biofuels Digest.

The practice of coating soybean seed with neonicotinoid pesticides as a safeguard against insect damage provides "negligible overall benefits to soybean production in most situations," says an EPA analysis.

On the same day EPA approved the new Dow herbicide, USDA listed four steps it will take in response to the spread of herbicide resistant weeds.

EPA extended the comment period on its clean water rule known as "Waters of the United States" until Nov 14; a three-week extension. Some 217,134 comments were filed as of Monday.

The Republican-run House passed a bill to prevent the EPA from finalizing its "Waters of the United States" regulation, sending the bill to an uncertain future in the Senate during the brief pre-election session. "I doubt if (Majority Leader Harry) Reid is going to let something like that come up," said Sen Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. The White House, in a statement, threatened a veto if the bill reaches the president.

Normal agricultural activities are exempt from regulation under the Clean Water Act and the proposed "Waters of the United States" regulation won't change that, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said. The rule, proposed in March, is opposed vocally in farm country. The American Farm Bureau Federation, for example, began a "ditch the rule" campaign out of concern of federal regulation of farm ditches.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says the recent upturn in gasoline consumption will be reflected in the ethanol mandate for this year, which should be announced in coming weeks. "You will see the rule coming out with changed numbers as a result," she told the National Farmers Union fly-in. EPA proposed a relaxation of the so-called Renewable Fuels Standard on grounds that U.S. fuel consumption was lower than expected, so it was becoming impossible for oil companies to meet the targets set by law for ethanol use.

With 2014 nearly two-thirds over, EPA sent its proposed biofuels mandate for this year to the White House for review, said The Hill newspaper, quoting an EPA official as saying the agency's goal "is to put the RFS (Renewable Fuels Standard) program on a path that supports continued growth in renewable fuels over time."

Consumer Reports magazine urged pregnant women to avoid eating tuna and suggested consumers should consider 17 species of seafood that are low in mercury, which can have damage the brain and nervous system if over-consumed.

There are few federal or state safeguards against the introduction of an invasive species as a biofuel crop, say researchers at the University of Illinois in two newly published papers.

Thirteen Democratic senators asked the administration to quell concerns in farm country about what is covered by the so-called Waters of the United States rule.

"Rep. Bruce Braley is betting the farm on corn — and Democrats’ hold on the Senate may be in danger if he’s wrong," says the lead sentence in Politico on the Senate campaign in Iowa. The Hawkeye state is No 1 i corn and ethanol production, with several thousand people working at ethanol plants. Braley

The ethanol mandate is likely to be set higher than initially proposed by the EPA, says Sen Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat, in comments quoted by The Hill newspaper. Franken was among 10 Democratic senators, including Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, who met White House advisor John Podesta to discuss biodiesel.

With the August recess on the horizon, lawmakers seem certain to defer action on the annual spending bills for federal departments until this fall, says Roll Call. It sees "a dim prospect for any substantive appropriations work - aside from the child migrant supplemental - until after the November elections, or perhaps later. Many senior appropriators say they now see a 12-bill continuing resolution as a near inevitability."

Landowners in five states in the upper Midwest are eligible for $8 million in payments if they establish new habitat for honey bees on land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve, says USDA.

States in the Chesapeake Bay region made progress in controlling water pollution from agriculture and communities but many jurisdictions are short of goals, says the Associated Press in summarizing...

Rulemaking for this year's ethanol mandate "has been more time-consuming than originally anticipated," says the Environmental Protection Agency.

A new regulation will restore so-called application exclusion zones intended to protect farmworkers and other people from exposure to pesticides as they are being applied, said the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday. The exclusion zones were created as part of a 2015 agricultural worker protection standard and were reduced in size in 2020 during the Trump era.