The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) recently submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.”
“In recent years, our industry has invested billions of dollars in capacity expansions that would allow further increases in ethanol production and use,” RFA said. “However, a number of burdensome EPA regulations are stifling growth in ethanol production and demand, inhibiting job creation, imposing unnecessary costs on both industry and consumers, and preventing renewable fuels from reaching their full potential.”
The comments listed 12 ways unnecessary regulatory burdens could be removed.
One of the recommendations included elimination of regulations on E15 and other mid-level ethanol blends and establish parity with all fuel blends. The maximum volatility limit for gasoline during the summer ozone control season is nine pounds per square inch, yet the EPA allows blends with a minimum of 10 percent ethanol to exceed this by one PSI. This rule should be used to apply to all fuel blends containing more than nine percent ethanol by volume.
The RFA also recommended reformation of the survey process so that facilities are not visited multiple times by different surveyors. The information requested by the surveyors only should be needed to comply with EPA regulations. Reformation of the process for becoming certified as an alternative fuel, which in its current form is impractical, was also comprised in the comments.