The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is one of America’s great success stories, and the bedrock policy that forged our nation’s biofuels industry. It provides consumers with real choice and savings at the pump, while strengthening our rural economy, lowering our carbon footprint, and delivering greater energy independence by requiring a modest but growing amount of biofuels be blended into our nation’s transportation fuel mix. Today, 98 percent of gasoline in the U.S. contains about 10 percent ethanol.
At Growth Energy, we believe the RFS should be faithfully executed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as Congress intended, and that EPA should not undermine the policy and increase consumer fuel costs, hurt our economy, and hinder progress toward our environmental goals.
Growth Energy will continue to support:
The 2005 RFS allowed small refineries with a production capacity less than 75,000 barrels per day to be temporarily exempted from the law’s blending requirements. When the RFS was expanded in 2007, EPA extended these exemptions until 2011 and required small refineries to demonstrate “disproportionate economic hardship” to qualify for future waivers. Starting with 2016 the compliance period, EPA rapidly increased the number of SREs, granting 85 over three years and removing 4 billion gallons of biofuels from the marketplace.
In January 2020, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver issued a unanimous decision that invalidated SREs granted by EPA to three refineries for the 2016-2017 compliance years, ruling that:
In response to this decision, refineries submitted more than 70 SRE petitions reaching back to 2011 to retroactively establish a continuous stream of SREs year-to-year. While EPA has rejected a majority of the so-called “gap year” SRE petitions, a number have yet to be addressed.
Ethanol's proven environmental benefits make it a key piece of our nation's goals to decarbonize the transport sector. We look forward to working with nominee for Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on the clean energy solutions she focused on in her Senate hearing. https://t.co/BsDm5so53r
via @GrowthEnergy
.@POTUS's executive order is a reminder of the link between our climate + our economy, and we’re eager to help the Administration deliver on promises to unleash biofuels as a key solution to climate change + restore economic opportunity in rural America. growthenergy.org/2021/01/27/gro…
via @GrowthEnergy
A new study published by researchers from Environmental Health and Engineering Inc., Harvard University and Tufts University shows corn #ethanol emits 46 percent fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than gasoline.https://t.co/fn49TbwlqL https://t.co/pIbYDv7wnz
via @EthanolMagazine
[email protected] DYK? 46% lower GHG emissions for climate-friendly🌽 #ethanol ⛽️per latest study. https://t.co/5yJc2CkjXN
via @sdcorn