On behalf of the Urban Air Initiative and a coalition of environmental organizations, renewable fuel producers, and farm boards, BG&A filed comments with EPA’s Regulatory Reform Task Force concerning its evaluation of existing regulations. BG&A’s comments ask EPA to repeal and replace specific outdated rules that have hindered the development of clean, high-octane gasoline-ethanol blends.
The comments identify five different sets of EPA regulations that have hindered competition in the fuel market: (1) certification fuel rules that prevent innovation by inhibiting auto manufacturers from building more efficient engines; (2) the Agency’s outdated interpretation of the sub-sim law as capping ethanol use in existing vehicles, which hampers the use of higher ethanol blends in these vehicles; (3) needless RVP rules that limit the viability of E15 and mid-level ethanol blends; (4) a mandatory fuel economy calculation, which penalizes automakers for using ethanol; and (5) EPA’s rule requiring the States to use a radically inaccurate vehicular emissions model (MOVES2014a) in their pollution reduction planning.
EPA’s Regulatory Reform Task Force was established pursuant to Executive Order 13,777, which required every agency to “evaluate existing regulations,” identify job-killing, outdated, ineffective, and costly rules, and “make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement, or modification.”