House Prods EPA on RFS Mandate

STREATOR, Ill. (DTN) -- Four congressmen have asked the Environmental Protection Agency to explain its actions regarding implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard mandate.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Peter Welch, D-Vt., sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Friday, March 28, requesting additional information "on the challenges of implementation" of the RFS mandate. The letter is a follow-up to a recent meeting between the lawmakers and McCarthy, according to a news release issued Monday, March 31, by Goodlatte.

In October, Goodlatte, Costa, Womack and Welch sent a letter signed by 169 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives to the EPA asking them to lower the mandate for 2014. They also joined together to introduce H.R. 1462, the "RFS Reform Act," which eliminates corn-based ethanol requirements, caps the amount of ethanol that can be blended into conventional gasoline at 10%, and requires the EPA to set cellulosic biofuels mandate levels at production levels. This legislation has drawn the support of 59 bipartisan cosponsors and more than 50 outside organizations, Goodlatte said.

The RFS mandate is scheduled to increase each year until 2022, but the EPA proposed reducing the mandate for 2014 from the statute requirement of 18.1 billion gallons to 15.2 billion gallons. One of the reasons for the cut in the mandate was to avoid the blend wall, EPA stated. The blend wall is the saturation point for ethanol in the gasoline pool based on current gasoline standards and consumer preference. Currently, 10% of most of the gasoline consumed in the United States is blended with ethanol, primarily corn-based.

The letter asks for EPA to outline where in statue the agency is provided with "the authority to act now to reduce the renewable fuel obligations and what is the cause for action that is allowed under statute?"

House members also asked that if the EPA is acting under the assumption that severe harm would be brought about by the blend wall or other results of requiring the statutory levels of the RFS for 2014, "Can the EPA explain why similar actions were not taken in 2008 and 2012?"

The authors wrote about the issue of using corn supply for fuel instead of livestock feed.

"As efforts to reform the RFS continue, we are interested to learn more about challenges faced by the EPA in implementing this law," Goodlatte stated in the release.

"We hope that the answers provided by the EPA will help us to ensure that any legislative fix effectively addresses these challenges," Goodlatte stated. "Congress created this artificial ethanol market that is distorting the food and feed market, and Congress must provide relief from its unintended consequences."

(BM/AG)

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