On January 31, 2022, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and 12 of their colleagues submitted a letter to EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, regarding EPA’s RFS Annual Rules and Proposed RFS Small Refinery Exemption Decision. In the bipartisan letter, Senators Klobuchar and Grassley and their colleagues urge EPA to prioritize the RFS in support of a “homegrown energy future” by:
- Maintaining the blending requirements for 2022, including the 250 million gallon remand;
- Denying all pending SRE;
- Eliminating the proposed retroactive cuts to the 2020 RVO; and
- Setting 2021 volumes at the statutory levels.
The letter commends EPA’s efforts to better the RFS program and highlights areas with room for improvement. Of particular concern to the letter signatories is EPA’s proposal to waive retroactively 2.96 billion gallons of renewable fuel from the 2020 RVOs. The letter states that adjusting these biofuel volumes more than two years after they were finalized would set a troubling precedent and impact negatively the entire agriculture and fuel supply chain. Therefore, Klobuchar and her colleagues urge EPA to eliminate the proposed retroactive cuts to the 2020 volumes and require obligated parties to comply with the 2020 standards that were issued in final in 2019. The signatories express similar concerns with the proposal to reset retroactively authority to establish 2021 RVOs and state that EPA cannot meet its ambitious climate goals without providing for growth and certainty in the RFS.
Senators Klobuchar and Grassley and their colleagues request that EPA finalize these actions as quickly as possible to restore integrity, stability, and growth to the RFS program and the U.S. biofuel sector.
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