Photo by mrebert. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

Last month, Texas asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halve the nationwide renewable fuels standard (RFS) because it believes "implementation of the RFS would severely harm the economy or environment" of Texas. Basically, Texas said, using so much corn to make ethanol (for 2008, the RFS is nine billion gallons) will hurt Texas' big leather pocketbook. As per the rules, the EPA then asked other groups for comment, and the National Chicken Council stepped up to support Texas' call (yes, this is the same National Chicken Council that was hatin' on corn ethanol a year ago).

Using language to get the EPA's attention, the NCC said in a statement (pasted in full after the jump) that U.S. policy to grow corn for ethanol "is imposing 'severe harm' on the broiler chicken industry and should be scaled back." The national ethanol policy leads to high corn prices, which hurts poultry companies, the NCC said. Of course, feeding chickens a lot of grain isn't the healthiest way to raise them, but that's a post for another blog. The NCC represents companies that make about 95 of the chicken sold in the U.S.