Congressional testimony by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler September 19 before a House committee have prompted the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) to again criticize the EPA leader.
Wheeler testified to the House Science, Space & Technology Committee that small refinery exemptions (SREs) have had no impact on U.S. biofuel demand. “Several statements made during the hearing about ethanol supply and demand are inconsistent with government data and market intelligence,” RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper said in a September 25 letter to Wheeler.
Cooper cited U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showing U.S. ethanol consumption fell from 14.485 billion gallons in 2017 to 14.382 billion gallons in 2018 – the first year-over-year decline in over 20 years. The drop in ethanol demand came despite gasoline demand remaining essentially steady from 2017 to 2018.
Plus, the latest EIA projections peg U.S. ethanol consumption at just 14.38 billion gallons for 2019, down from their forecast of 14.82 billion gallons that was made in January 2018 – before 2016 and 2017 SREs had been issued by EPA. In their updated outlook for ethanol consumption in 2019, EIA said that outlook “…assumes growth in higher-level ethanol blends is limited in the near-term by recent Small Refinery Exemptions that reduced volumes of renewable fuels required under the RFS.”
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