WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) released the following statement after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume mandate for 2014-2016:
“Our goal should be helping families and workers have the ability to grow their businesses and get good paying jobs. The Obama administration’s unworkable mandates will hurt Louisiana’s seafood industry, contribute to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and threaten manufacturing jobs. The Renewable Fuel Standard rules need to be reexamined by Congress before the damage to Louisiana’s economy is irreversible.”
The EPA is required to set the volumes of ethanol and biodiesel that are required to be blended into the U.S. transportation fuel supply under the RFS. EPA has overstepped its authority and has mismanaged the fuel standard, missing deadlines for the 2014 and 2015 RFS regulations. The EPA’s mandates overestimate how much ethanol consumers will purchase and the fuel supply can handle, driving up costs for producers and refiners. This follows the EPA overstepping its authority by issuing a 297-page Waters of the U.S. final rule requiring a federal permit for any activity that results in a discharge into any body of water covered by the new definition of “waters of the United States,” including small streams and wetlands.
Read more about how the EPA’s ethanol policy is threatening Louisiana’s harvest and coastal economy HERE.