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and encourage farmers to plow more land. Considering those factors, they said, corn ethanol was only slightly better than gasoline when it came to carbon dioxide emissions.
• Sixteen percent better, to be exact. And not in the short term. Only by 2022.
• By law, though, biofuels were supposed to be at least 20 percent greener than gasoline.
• From a legal standpoint, the results didn't matter. Congress exempted existing coal- and gas-burning ethanol plants from meeting this standard.
• But as a policy and public relations issue, it was a real problem. The biofuel-friendly Obama administration was undermining the industry's major selling point: that it was much greener than gasoline.
• So the ethanol industry was livid. Lobbyists flooded the EPA with criticism, challenging the government's methods and conclusions.
• The EPA's conclusion was based on a model. Plug in some assumed figures -- the price of corn, the number of acres planted, how much corn would grow per acre -- and the model would spit out a number.
• To get past 20 percent, the EPA needed to change its assumptions.
• The most important of those assumptions was called the yield, a measure of how much corn could be produced on an acre of land. The higher the yield, the easier it would be for farmers to meet the growing demand without plowing new farmland, which counted against ethanol in the greenhouse gas equation.
• Corn yields have inched steadily upward over the years as farms have become more efficient. The government's first ethanol model assumed that trend would continue, rising from 150 bushels per acre to about 180 by the year 2022.
• Agriculture companies like Monsanto Co. and DuPont Pioneer, which stood to make millions off an ethanol boom, told the government those numbers were too low.
• They predicted that genetically modified seeds -- which they produce -- would send yields skyrocketing. With higher yields, farmers could produce more corn on less land, reducing the environmental effects.
• Documents show the White House budget office also suggested the EPA raise its yield assumptions.
• When the final rule came out, the EPA and Agriculture officials added a new "high yield case scenario" that assumed 230 bushels per acre.
• The flaw in those assumptions, independent scientists knew, was that a big increase in corn prices would encourage people to farm in less hospitable areas like Wayne County, which could never produce such large yields.

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