The Environmental Protection Agency has denied a request from Texas to cut the federal ethanol mandate in half for a year in hopes of bringing down corn prices.

Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson spoke to Perry about his waiver request by phone Thursday. Johnson is to announce the agency's decision publicly later in the day.

An energy bill passed in December requires that 9 billion gallons of ethanol be blended into gasoline, from next month through Aug. 31 of next year. Perry asked the EPA in April to drop the requirement to 4.5 billion gallons, saying demand for ethanol is raising corn prices for livestock producers and driving up food prices for people, too.

The Nebraska Corn Board (NCB) and Nebraska Corn Growers Association (NeCGA) welcomed Thursday’s decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to not grant a 50 percent waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard as requested by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

EPA can grant such requests if it determines, after public notice and comment, that implementation of the RFS requirements would severely harm the economy or environment of a state, region or the United States as a whole, or if there is an inadequate domestic supply of renewable fuel.

Perry filed the request claiming that the RFS was pushing up feed and food prices and causing harm to citizens and businesses in Texas. EPA decided this was not the case and that granting the waiver would not significantly lower feed or food prices.

“We appreciate that EPA followed the proper protocol and, in consultation with the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, came to the conclusion that granting Governor Perry’s request is not the solution to higher food and feed costs,” said Randy Uhrmacher, president of NeCGA and a corn producer from Juniata. “The system worked and determined that there is no crisis being driven by corn-based ethanol.”

Jon Holzfaster, chairman of the Nebraska Corn Board and a corn and cattle producer from Paxton, said regulations allow for an equitable review of the situation, and in this case EPA made the right decision.

“Reducing the RFS would send the wrong signal to ethanol producers and investors, and in the end the waiver would not have significantly lowered food prices because high petroleum prices are the main driver in today’s food costs,” Holzfaster said. “EPA’s decision was right on, and it keeps us on the path to a more diversified fuel supply.”