EPA Lets Down Farmers Again

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson released the following statement in regard to the release of the supplemental rule to address the Small Refinery Waiver actions that have been taken by the Administration:

“The Administration has repeatedly directed the EPA and other agencies to support the ethanol industry and corn farmers, and the EPA has told those farmers to trust them.  Instead we’re seeing a final rule out of EPA that doesn’t guarantee the 15 billion gallons the RFS mandates.  At a time when our agriculture economy is struggling, the EPA has ripped 4 billion gallons of ethanol out of the market and impacted corn prices and rural communities.  We also have yet to see the other things that were promised to the biofuels industry and corn farmers to get more ethanol into the market via infrastructure incentives and policies related to higher ethanol blends.”

Chairman Peterson is also co-chair of the Congressional Biofuels Caucus, a bipartisan group of Members of Congress who advocate for homegrown renewable fuel policies that boost farmer incomes and reduce dependence on foreign oil. He is also the sponsor of the Renewable Fuel Standard Integrity Act of 2019, a bill which provides certainty to the biofuels industry by setting an annual deadline for small refinery exemption applications and bringing transparency to the process.