Positive Impact will Hinge on Details in Final EPA Rulemaking

Contact: Monte Shaw
515-252-6249

JOHNSTON, IOWA – Today President Donald Trump’s Administration released a proposed biofuels package intended to address the damage caused by Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) refinery exemptions that have destroyed biofuels demand and led to shuttered ethanol and biodiesel plants across the country. The proposal included the much-needed prospective reallocation of exempted gallons in order to ensure the integrity of the RFS blend levels.

In response to this proposal, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) Executive Director Monte Shaw made the following statement:

“Iowans thank President Trump for again listening to their concerns and calls for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to be enforced according to the law. The economic devastation wrought by the unjustified use of refinery exemptions must be stopped. We welcome the proposal to restore integrity to the RFS by prospectively accounting for those exemptions using a three-year rolling average of actual refinery exemptions granted. We will work with our champions and the White House to make sure the EPA’s final rules ensure that a 15 billion-gallon RFS will actually be a 15 billion-gallon RFS. If that is accomplished, the integrity of the RFS will have been restored and President Trump’s promise to protect and uphold the RFS will have been redeemed.

“None of this would have been possible without the steadfast support and hard work of our elected champions. We are deeply appreciative of all Sens. Ernst and Grassley and Gov. Reynolds did to bring about this positive proposal today.

“With the process toward RFS integrity begun, IRFA will also continue to work on expanding biofuels requirements, specifically the advanced level in 2020 and the biomass-based diesel level in 2021, as well as restoring the 500 million gallons of conventional biofuels that were illegally waived by the Obama Administration in 2016, and which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has already ordered the EPA to put back in the RFS program.”

The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association represents the state’s liquid renewable fuels industry and works to foster its growth. Iowa is the nation’s leader in renewable fuels production with 43 ethanol refineries capable of producing over 4.5 billion gallons annually – including 34 million gallons of annual cellulosic ethanol production capacity – and 11 biodiesel facilities with the capacity to produce nearly 400 million gallons annually. For more information, visit the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association website at: www.IowaRFA.org.

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