Unworkable RFS law needs overhaul

API President and CEO Jack Gerard has told a US congressional subcommittee that while the RFS law has increased the use of ethanol and other biofuels, implementation of the law’s requirements is becoming increasingly difficult and could hurt consumers. The law could soon require concentrations of ethanol in gasoline above levels that are known to be safe.

Gerard’s comments

‘This would present an unacceptable risk to American car owners, who have invested billions of dollars in vehicles that were designed, built, and warranted to operate on a maximum 10% ethanol blend,’ Gerard said in testimony delivered to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power. ‘It also would put at risk billions of dollars of gasoline station equipment in thousands of retail outlets across America, most owned by small independent businesses.

‘Biofuels are now in almost all gasoline. While API supports the continued, appropriate use of ethanol and other renewable fuels, the RFS law has become increasingly unrealistic, unworkable, and a threat to consumers. It needs an overhaul.’

Under the RFS, the amount of biofuels blended with transportation fuels needs to double from 15 billion gall. by 2020.

Gerard also said that he is concerned that the Environmental Protection Agency has insisted the industry pay penalty fees for failing to blend gasoline with cellulosic ethanol, even though it is not yet commercially manufactured. ‘Mandating the use of fuels that do not exist is absurd to its face and inexcusably bad public policy.’ 

Adapted from press release by Claira Lloyd.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/11072012/api_on_rfs/