Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I come here to raise an issue, not with the actual bill we will be voting on today but with language included in a committee report accompanying the bill.

The Environmental Protection Agency has reportedly given out unprecedented numbers of so-called small refinery hardship waivers to the renewable fuel standard. These are given, in some cases, to huge multibillion-dollar companies that probably would not be entitled to what is really a hardship.

The EPA has yet to disclose what waivers it has granted and the rationale, but based on what has been reported, its actions seem pretty darn fishy, from my point of view. Refiners speaking with the press have noted:

Anyone with a brain submitted an application. The EPA was handing out those exemptions like trick or treat candy.

The EPA is hiding behind a very narrow court case for specific refineries, as well as report language accompanying last year's Energy and Water appropriations bill. Neither I nor any other Senator voted for this report language. Report language accompanying bills are not actually law so they are not legally binding.

Still, I wrote to the subcommittee that it should not include language purporting to tell the EPA to do anything other than follow the law. The law mandates blending 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels into our fuel supply. Estimates are that these retroactive waivers have reduced that by as much as 1.63 billion gallons. Every billion gallons lost equates to a loss of more than 2 million acres of harvested corn and an increase in emissions.

My constituents are outraged at this activity by the EPA. Agriculture Secretary Perdue has called these waivers, in his words, ``demand destruction'' for biofuels.

I wrote to the Energy and Water Subcommittee that it should urge the EPA to disclose the waivers it gives and the rationale for any of these grants and that any waivers should not result in a lowering of the 15 billion gallon renewable volume obligation in the law.

I am disappointed that the appropriators didn't include my commonsense language about transparency, but I am very upset that it renewed the previous language purporting to direct EPA how to consider small refinery waivers. The Appropriations Committee should drop the controversial report language and EPA should simply follow the law.

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