A bipartisan group of farm-state senators is increasing the pressure on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to fulfill President Trump’s pledge to blend more corn ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply.
“Allowing an open marketplace with more fuel options for consumers encourages competition and drives down consumer fuel costs,” the group of 18 lawmakers, led by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, said in a letter to Pruitt Monday.
The senators included a mix of Republicans and Democrats, including Illinois Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and Republicans such as Joni Ernst of Iowa and John Thune of South Dakota.
They want Pruitt to provide concrete details on how he plans to fulfill Trump’s April promise to open the fuel market to 15 percent ethanol blends of gasoline by ending the EPA’s fuel-volatility restrictions on using the fuel during the summer.
EPA approved a waiver for using the now-ubiquitous 10 percent ethanol fuel blends almost three decades ago, which helped to ramp up the ethanol mandate under EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard. The senators say it is long overdue for a waiver to be extended to 15 percent ethanol fuels, or E15.
“The current interpretation is outdated and has created an untenable regulatory barrier to E15 as a readily available option for motorists,” the senators wrote. “As the fuel marketplace has changed over the past 28 years since the [Reid Vapor Pressure] waiver for 10 percent ethanol blends was first approved, this provision needs to change as well.”
The letter asks Pruitt to deliver on Trump’s promise to open up the market for E15 by providing “a transparent timeline from you on the regulatory pathway forward” on how the EPA plans to proceed with the president’s request.
“First, we ask you to provide an expected timeline of the rulemaking process to clarify how the agency will make this change to allow higher ethanol blends access to the market place,” the letter states.
“Additionally, we ask that you provide immediate clarity to allow higher ethanol blends to be sold in the interim while the outdated regulation is being changed,” the senators asked. “Doing this will fulfill the president’s commitment to allow consumers access to these fuels year-round, expand consumer choice, and eliminate confusion at the pump.”
The letter comes as the EPA continues to give waivers to oil refiners under a clause in the RFS that allows the agency to provide “hardship” waivers to exempt some small refiners from having to blend ethanol.
Grassley and the other senators have blasted Pruitt for the waivers, which they say violates the law by providing them to some of the largest oil refinery companies in the country. They also say the waivers undermine Trump’s commitment to support the RFS and corn farmers.
