AFPM says RFS not based on current market

In Washington, the American Fuel & Petroleum Manufactures association says the overarching problem with an RFS program that mandates more and more biofuel blending every year is that gasoline demand today is much lower than government projected 14 years ago. When the RFS was written, Congress thought the U.S. would be consuming about 165 billion gallons of gasoline this year instead of the approximately 140 billion gallons we’ve actually used in recent years (which is even lower now due to COVID-19). RFS volume targets in the 2007 law are based on projections that haven’t come to pass. If the U.S. was consuming 160 billion gallons of gasoline, we would easily consume 15 billion gallons of conventional corn ethanol and likely more. But with today’s fuel consumption, there’s literally nowhere for extra ethanol to go once the blend wall is hit, the AFPM said.