GOP senators urge EPA not to raise renewable volume obligation for 2021
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and other Senate Republicans are urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to raise the Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO), which sets the minimum amount of renewable fuels that must be supplied to the market each year.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the senators asked the EPA not to increase the RVO for 2021, given the already suppressed demand for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, due to COVID-19. Any increase in the mandate would cause further economic harm next year, they said.
“Within the Energy Policy Act of 2005’s amendments to Clean Air Act creating the RFS, Congress explicitly gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to reduce the RVO to realistically achievable levels through the use of a general waiver if “implementation of the requirement would severely harm the economy or environment of a state, a region, or the United States” With refinery utilization rates and demand for fuels remaining at or near historic lows, it is clear that maintenance or expansion of the current RVO would impose this “severe economic harm,” indicating the need for a general waiver,” the Senators wrote.
Along with Capito, the letter was signed by 14 other Republican Senators.
“Any increase in blending volumes mandated under the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard), especially an expansion of the 2021 RVO, would ultimately impact American consumers forced to bear the associated costs, creating another drag on a national economy that is in a state of fragile recovery from the depths of the pandemic. It is essential that you use all available statutory authorities to see to it that these unnecessary impacts are avoided,” the senators wrote.
