Sasha Forsen | PR Manager | Green Plains Inc. 

EPA RFS Hearing

June 25, 2015 

Good Afternoon and thank you for opportunity to express my support 

today for the Renewable Fuel Standard. 

My name is Sasha Forsen and I am the Public Relations Manager for 

Green Plains Inc., a 1 billion gallon ethanol producer headquartered in 

Omaha, Nebraska. 

I have deep roots in the agriculture industry in the midwest. I am the 

proud daughter of farmer, who farms with his father, my grandpa. And I 

have two younger brothers one who bought a home near the family 

farm in Herman, Nebraska so he’s not too far from work on the farm 

everyday and another who just graduated from high school and won’t 

start college until January because it was very important to him not to 

miss harvest this coming season. As it is with farming, this is more than 

just a job to my family, it’s a way of life. 

I’m honored that my work at Green Plains has an impact on not only the 

livelihood of my family, but also for the many hard-working men and 

women who remain committed to their farms/jobs despite the 

uncertainty that goes with planting a seed in the ground and hoping the 

weather turns out just right. It was only a few short years ago many of 

our crops were under water due to flooding, then a drought the 

following year in 2012. Those are not predictable circumstances, but we 

plant the seeds in the ground anyway. There are some things we can be 

certain on though, and since 2007 it’s been the Renewable Fuel 

Standard. But now, to the disappointment of farmers and ethanol 

producers everywhere, we are finding ourselves with unnecessary 

uncertainty due to EPA’s proposal to reduce the renewable volume 

obligation in the renewable fuel standard, something that today should 

have remained a constant in an environment of absolute uncertainties. 

The Renewable Fuel Standard has been a win for farmers (including 

those who feed their cattle distillers grains – co-product of ethanol 

production), for the additional jobs its helped to create, for our national 

security, and for consumers who now have something other than E0 to 
use at the pump. It’s really not surprising that Big Oil has fought so hard 

to limit or access to the consumer, but it’s not because they’re product is 

good for the air we breathe, or because their product strengthens 

economies in rural American like right here in the heartland, or because 

their product is renewable. It’s because they’ve seen we are a real 

industry with a product that has become the definition of our fuel today 

and they don’t want to give up anymore real estate on the fuel tank and 

that’s the unfortunate reason we are here today. 

People like my dad, my grandpa and my brothers are our customers, our 

friends, and some of our employees are even farmers themselves. My 

colleagues at our headquarters and at the plants are hard working 

people who are proud to go to work everyday for a company who prides 

itself on safety and operational excellence. A career at Green Plains has 

been rewarding for us all and many of us have seen our company, as 

well as the industry, grow into something that’s here to stay. We are 

producing a product that benefits consumers everywhere, so don’t limit 

my access as a consumer AND a producer because Big Oil wants a 

monopoly on US drivers. 

As a driver, I want access to E15 and I thank the retailers so far who 

have been committed to bringing more choice at the pump. As an 

employee of this great industry, I want to see companies who continue

to invest in the future of fuel. And as the daughter of a farmer, I want 

farmers to have the opportunity to continue to create additional 

demand for their product and not have the uncertainty of the RFS, 

something that should, no question, be fully in place today and that so 

many of us have counted on. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today on behalf of my hard 

working family, and my friends and colleagues at Green Plains.