House Subcommittee to Consider Ending Renewable Fuels Standard

(WASHINGTON, DC) The Subcommittee on Environment will hold a hearing on Tuesday to discuss “The 21st Century Transportation Fuels Act”. Rep. John Shimkus (IL-R) and Rep. Bill Flores (TX-D) released a discussion draft two weeks ago to consider the future of transportation in the United States. “I’ve been engaged in the biofuel debate my entire career in Congress,” said Shimkus, whose district includes significant corn and soybean producers as well as major ethanol and oil refiners. “In this Congress, my goal was to look beyond just the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to comprehensively reshape federal transportation fuel policies in a way that could provide more value to consumers and more certainty to industry stakeholders.” The discussion draft includes policy provisions corn growers support says Wesley Spurlock, Chairman of the National Corn Growers Association and a farmer from Texas. “In addition to RVP parity that allows higher ethanol blends with lower evaporative emissions to be sold year-round, we also support more regulatory certainty when it comes to approval of higher blends, such as E20. We support a high-octane vehicle test fuel so automakers can expedite the design and testing of new, optimized vehicles. However, the net impact of all the provisions is our most important consideration.” Spurlock is scheduled to testify along with other representing the agricultural, automotive, oil and retail industries.