AFPM provided the following statement regarding the unlawful move by the Trump administration to waive Clean Air Act rules and green light the year-round sale of E15 fuel, gasoline blended to contain 15 percent ethanol. The regulation is currently under review by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals:
"After nearly 30 years of arguing that Clean Air Act Reid Vapor Pressure waivers apply to gasoline containing “at least 9 percent and no more than 10 percent” ethanol, EPA is now claiming the exact opposite — that the statue is “ambiguous.” This slick reinterpretation is an overstep and edits, rather than enforces, the will of Congress.
"The Agency cannot interpret the Clean Air Act to mean something Congress expressly rejected. When Congress wants to set a floor in statute, it does so explicitly — as it did elsewhere in the Clean Air Act, and in the Energy Security Act, and the Energy Tax Act. If there is any doubt over Congress’s intent, a 1990 Clean Air Act amendment that would have explicitly set an RVP waiver floor of “at least” 10 percent ethanol was rejected in favor of the statute as written.
"To change the RVP standard requires an act of Congress. It doesn’t matter how much political pressure the corn ethanol lobby applies. Article 1 cannot be ignored."
The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) is the leading trade association representing the makers of the fuels that keep us moving, the petrochemicals that are the essential building blocks for modern life, and the midstream companies that get our feedstocks and products where they need to go. We make the products that make life better, safer and more sustainable — we make progress.
