U.S. must 'hustle' to reach 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, ag secretary says

KansasCity.com
By CORY NEALON
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)
Updated: 2012-03-12T13:29:25Z

The United States can meet President Barack Obama's goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, but it better get moving.

That's according to Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is working with other federal agencies to boost biofuels production.

"I think we're going to have to hustle," Vilsack said during a phone interview Tuesday with the Daily Press.

The U.S. produced roughly 14 billion gallons of biofuels last year. The overwhelming majority was corn-based ethanol, an industry that benefited from a 30-year federal subsidy program that Congress let expire in December.

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