API’s Gerard tells Congress RFS disaster can be averted

At a U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, API President and CEO Jack Gerard testified that the federal biofuels mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), is broken beyond repair but that disaster can still be averted.

‘The RFS isn’t just a relic of America’s bygone era of energy scarcity, it is a grave economic threat,” Gerard said.  ‘Unless it is immediately halted, it will unnecessarily cost our economy and consumers billions of dollars.  To avert this disaster, we call on the administration to immediately waive the volume requirements and for Congress to finally repeal this fundamentally broken law.”

Gerard said the RFS and its requirements are already beginning to drive up energy production costs.  He cited the Energy Policy Research Foundation’s (EPRINC) estimate that the program could increase the price of gasoline from 20 cents to as much as $1.00 per gallon by next year. 

In 2007, when Congress created the RFS, the energy market and our nation’s energy landscape were very different, according to Gerard. The RFS was designed to reduce emissions, make the U.S. more energy secure and provide a reliable source of domestic energy that would lessen energy imports from less stable parts of the world.

‘Today, the U.S. is closer to achieving its important goals not because of the RFS, but because of the oil and natural gas industry’s technological advances and vastly expanded energy resources,” said Gerard. ‘Our energy renaissance has driven our nation’s CO2 emissions near a twenty year low, made the U.S. the number one producer of natural gas in the world, and put us on track to become the world’s largest producer of oil in just a few years.”

API is a national trade association that represents all segments of America’s technology-driven oil and natural gas industry.  Its more than 500 members ‘ including large integrated companies, exploration and production, refining, marketing, pipeline, and marine businesses, and service and supply firms ‘ provide most of the nation’s energy.  The industry also supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested over $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.