Congressman Steve King sends letter to Trump demanding clarity on 15B gallon blend this year

In Washington, Congressman Steve King, a member of the Congressional Biofuel Caucus, releases the text of a letter he sent to President Trump today that requests the President to “make a declarative statement that a minimum of 15 billion gallons will be blended annually and that all gallons actually waived will be annually recaptured under the RFS.”

The letter to President Trump was prompted by both the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) use of small refinery exemptions (SRE) to undermine the volume requirements contained in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), and also the failure of that agency to guarantee that 15 billion gallons of ethanol will be blended under the Renewable Volume Obligation rule they have announced for 2020. The EPA’s failure to enforce the volume requirements has led to an unfair advantage for petroleum, and “cumulatively, these exempted gallons frustrate the intent of the RFS, thereby compromising the livelihood of our nation’s farmers and the ability of our citizens to obtain the cleaner, efficient fuel that they increasingly demand.”

King’s letter to the President also points out the importance of addressing the issue of recapturing gallons that have been lost due to the use of SRE’s. King has introduced two bills, HR 3410 and HR 3411, that contain recapture provisions, and King reminds President Trump that “the foundation of the objective” announced after the Oval Office meeting of September 12 was “to ensure that at least 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuel are blended, accounting for waivers by using a three year rolling average of actual volumes waived by SREs.’ A core deficiency of the EPA’s recently announced rule is that “it does not rely on actual volumes waived by SREs in order to account for waivers, but instead relies on the recommendation of the Department of Energy (DOE).”