Ethanol production plants must undergo a strict and complex permitting
and compliance process before they are built. Additionally, they are subject
to inspections and evaluations to ensure that they maintain ongoing compliance
in a complex and ever changing regulatory structure. Regulations are intended
to ensure environmental quality—and America’s ethanol producers
are committed to meet these standards now and in the future.
Furthermore, a number
of recent and reputable studies have shown that ethanol production is
a net energy winner. In other words, ethanol production results in more
energy than is consumed in producing the ethanol—including all
manufacturing and distribution and the energy it takes to plant, grow
and harvest the corn that is used as the raw feedstock for ethanol production.