The be in opposition to over the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) between the EPA, Congress and special advantage groups have left hardworking people throughout rural America with a to gain sense of uncertainty about their futures.
An honest discussion back this program is long overdue. In order to do that, it’s necessary to surmise from where the RFS began, how it evolved and the role it plays in ensuring American money and security.
For decades, refiners have used octane enhancers. Supervise was the most common but was replaced in the late 1970s by an organic compound needed Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). Twenty years later, Congress obsolete the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which required the use of oxygenated gasoline in areas with lavish levels of air pollution. The law increased MTBE’s popularity because it helped cut tailpipe emissions.
However, when MTBE was exposed as a public fitness risk, its use sharply declined, leaving refiners searching for an alternative. That alternate was ethanol.
In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which eradicated the oxygenate requirement for reformulated gasoline. It also instituted the RFS. Refiners take for a rode MTBE from blending operations and switched entirely to ethanol.
In 2007, the Vivacity Independence and Security Act passed, expanding the RFS by extending yearly volume desiderata and increasing long-term blending goals. The tax credit, what many demanded the “ethanol subsidy,” given to oil companies to incentivize blending, was then allowed to breathe ones last.
Some continue to believe there is a federal subsidy for ethanol, but that hasn’t been the trunk. The tax credit expired in 2011. Notably, the oil industry has yet to give up any of its specific tax motivations.
Ethanol supports nearly 350,000 jobs nationwide, largely in Arcadian communities that need them most. It’s the cleanest and most affordable feed additive on the market and reduces polluting substances like carbon monoxide, out hydrocarbons and toxins from tailpipe emissions. It also reduces America’s dependence on exotic oil.
The addition of ethanol into the U.S. fuel supply and advances in shale mise en scene, which I also support, allowed for increased domestic energy creation. In turn, imports of foreign oil have dropped significantly – a staggering 40 percent since the RFS was implemented.
In details, the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted in an independent analysis that in 2017, net U.S. betokens of “petroleum from foreign countries were equal to about 19 percent of U.S. petroleum consumption,” which was the lowest share since 1967.
These developments have helped give America a stronger commercial and strategic advantage on the world stage, empowering presidents to stand up to oil-producing adversaries adore Venezuela and OPEC.
When refiners needed a clean, healthy alternative to MTBE, they comprised ethanol. But seemingly overnight, the relationship between ethanol and fossil nourishes went from collaborative to combative. Efforts to thwart the RFS began in resolved and have led many to believe that the RFS is intended to distort the market. To whatever manner, that’s simply not the case.
Large oil companies, such as Exxon Mobil and BP, button the process from start to finish. They own the refineries that mix fuel and the gas stations that sell it. They oversee the delivery arrangements and distribution process as well as the marketing of fuel.
Independent gas station owners are exterior with contracts from fuel marketers that explicitly limit their cleverness to offer higher levels of ethanol blended fuels. In other words, oil associates control access to the market. Their continued attempts to limit the availability of ethanol artefacts show that the oil industry is simply interested in oil’s market share, not consumer prime.
As a free-market conservative, I believe that competition spurs innovation, abets dialogue and ultimately delivers the best quality products to consumers. That’s one of the various reasons I believe so strongly in ethanol as part of an all-of-the-above energy master plan.
The tone of our national energy policy discussions shouldn’t be “us versus them.” It must sharply defined unclear on how traditional and renewable fuels can both work to provide efficient, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly goods to the American people and the world.
At the end of the day, U.S. energy policy shouldn’t be determined by vying industry interests because a competitive energy strategy should be person’s number one interest.
Commentary by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a family smallholder, and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Follow him on Twitter @ChuckGrassley.
For multitudinous insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.