Conservatives are pressing House lawmakers to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s higher-ethanol gasoline blend requirements, which were implemented as a means to lower fuel prices but that free-market critics say raise costs and harm taxpayers.
A group of conservative leaders and longtime President Donald Trump allies sent House lawmakers a letter on Thursday calling for the overturning of the EPA’s biofuel-blending quotas, arguing that the mandates raise fuel prices.
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Nearly three dozen conservatives signed onto the letter, including Unleash Prosperity Chairman Stephen Moore, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, Domestic Energy Producers Alliance president and CEO Jerry Simmons, and billionaire oilman Harold Hamm, according to Bloomberg.
The group said in the letter that the quotas are “a regressive tax on American workers, businesses and families.”
They added that the standards are the “largest, most expensive RFS mandate in history and the single most expensive regulation of President Trump’s second term,” citing the EPA’s estimate of at least $20 billion in annual costs. “At a time when inflation remains a primary concern for constituents, Congress should look to provide relief at the pump, not entrench bureaucratically imposed mandates that inflate fuel costs.”
At issue is the EPA’s biofuel blending standards that were set in March, also known as the Renewable Fuel Standard “Set 2” requirements. The RFS, established under the Clean Air Act, requires transportation fuel to contain an increasing volume of renewable fuel, a policy justified as reducing emissions.
The agency’s final rule would raise the total requirement to 25.82 billion renewable identification numbers for 2026 and 25.98 billion for 2027, up from 22.33 billion in 2025. One RIN represents one ethanol-equivalent gallon of renewable fuel.
The EPA’s final rule has been praised by agricultural groups such as corn and soybean farmers, as it creates a market for corn- and soy-based ethanol fuel. But oil refiners have argued that the standards raise compliance costs, especially for small and midsized refiners. The oil industry argues that the rise in compliance costs could fall onto consumers.
“For American workers, businesses and families already strained by inflation and high gas prices, this is the last thing they need,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance that spearheaded the effort, told Bloomberg.
The war in Iran has caused oil prices to rise, causing the Trump administration to take several actions to lower prices at the pump, including the EPA issuing emergency waivers to allow for the sale of higher-ethanol gasoline blends.
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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has noted that the agency would immediately begin to work on the third set.
“We want to ensure that all of you have a certain level of certainty and predictability, where you know where we’re going by that next deadline that is in front of us, as opposed to just assuming or worrying with great frustration that the next deadline is going to come and go,” Zeldin said in March.
