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 ethano l 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 brothe rs 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 harv est 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

wome n 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 drough t 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 E PA’s proposal to reduce the renewable volume obligation in the renewable fuel standard, something that today should

have remained a constant in an envir onment of absolute uncertainties

.

The Renewable Fuel Standard has been a win for farmers (includ ing

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 touse 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 thei r 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 o ur 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 a ccess to E15 and I tha nk 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 addit ional demand for their product and not have the uncertainty of the RFS,

som ething that should, no question , be fully in pla ce 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.