Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, yesterday I had the privilege of joining President Trump in Nebraska and Iowa for the official announcement of the year-round sale of E15. The announcement is the product of years of work across party lines to fight for the hard-working agriculture producers in Nebraska.

If you ask any family who lives in rural America, they will tell you how important fuel prices are in their lives. With longer-than-average daily commutes to work or to drop off their children at school, escalating gas prices make life more difficult for everyone.

A needless barrier has restricted consumers from filling up their vehicles with E15 fuel during some of the busiest months of the year-- the summer driving season. Each year, from the beginning of June to mid-September, retailers were unable to offer fuels with higher blends of ethanol without a Federal Government-issued waiver. This means that renewable solutions to reach our Nation's vital fuel needs have been needlessly anchored to an older era. The ban on the year-round sale of E15 has robbed Americans of an opportunity to save money at the pump with the purchase of a cleaner fuel.

Nebraska stands proudly as the largest producer of biofuel west of the Missouri River. We are home to 25 ethanol plants, which produce a total of more than 2 billion gallons of renewable fuel each year. According to the Nebraska Ethanol Board, our ethanol plants provide over 1,300 good-paying jobs to Nebraskans, and this creates a $5 billion impact on our State. As I have said before, for Nebraska and much of the heartland, restricting the year-round sale of E15 was equivalent to benching our best player during the most important game of the season.

For years, I have been fighting to put an end to this unnecessary ban that has restricted our farmers, retailers, and consumers for far too long. In 2017, I introduced the Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, with the senior Senator from Iowa, to put an end to this decades-old regulation. The bill sought to extend the Reid vapor pressure waiver to ethanol blends above 10 percent.

At the same time, I began holding very productive discussions with President Trump on the importance of E15 to the people of Nebraska but also to the people of rural America. The President agreed that this commonsense solution was needed. Last year, I was very proud to join him at the White House as he directed the EPA to allow for the year- round sale of E15.

Yesterday we turned a new page as President Trump's directive officially became a reality for farmers and ethanol producers. It was great to accompany the President, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to deliver this encouraging news.

We landed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and headed to the SIRE ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, IA. There, we heard President Trump give a speech highlighting the essential role of our farmers, ranchers, and the ethanol industry. We also heard from a few Nebraskans on how this is impacting them.

The first speaker was Kevin Ross. He is from Iowa. He is a sixth- generation farmer, and he is vice president of the National Corn Growers Association. He said:

I work in the greatest industry we have in this country, and that's agriculture. We are blessed by God to have the science that has let us achieve new heights in production. Whether that's yield of corn, the efficiency of this ethanol plant, or gains in my cattle, agriculture continues to do more with less. . . . The economic benefits and the clean air delivered through biofuels are wins for the seventh generation on my family farm and wins for all U.S. citizens.

Another guest speaker was Randy Gard. He is the chief operating officer of Bosselman Pump & Pantry and Bosselman Enterprises, located in my State of Nebraska at Grand Island. He said:

Today is a great day for the American farmer, the ethanol industry, fuel retailers, and the American consumer.

After consulting with their customers, this company started offering E15 fuel a few years ago. Mr. Gard continued:

We started to install the infrastructure, started to put all the marketing information behind it, and we came up with something fairly simple but compelling. We said E15 is simply better fuel and it costs less. . . . It was easy for our employees at our stores to articulate, easy for our customers to understand, and it must have worked because in 2017, our sales of E15 increased over 300 percent. In 2018, they went up another 225 percent. And with the help of President Trump opening the door for year-round E15, our newest projections for this year show an increase of another 400 percent.

Hearing the confidence of Nebraskans is encouraging, and this is why I have been determined to make the year-round sale of E15 a reality for them.

The nets that have constricted innovation and market expansion in rural America for far too long have now been cut, and the news couldn't come at a better time for our farmers and for our rural communities.

Last March brought unimaginable setbacks due to the historic flooding that ravaged through Nebraska and large regions of the Midwest. On top of higher input costs, tighter margins, and decreased commodity prices, these factors have created anxiety for our farm families. The lift of the year-round ban on E15 gives ag producers some much needed certainty during these very difficult times.

America's consumers and retailers will also reap the benefits. They will no longer face confusion at the pump, as E15 will be labeled consistently, regardless of the season. With more competition in place, consumers can make the best fuel decision for their families and for their wallets. Retailers will no longer need to make those unnecessary, expensive adjustments to their infrastructure every year to accommodate for this regulation.

The year-round sale of E15 implementation comes on the heels of more great news. EPA Administrator Wheeler recently announced that he signed a final rule which will implement legislation that I was proud to champion, the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method Act, also known as the FARM Act.

This bipartisan legislation protects farmers, ranchers, and livestock markets from misguided, burdensome EPA reporting requirements. Due to regulations that were originally meant to address industrial pollution, chemical plant explosions, and the release of toxic materials into the environment, farmers faced uncertainty about reporting animal waste emissions on farms and ranches and other operations.

These reporting regulations were not intended to affect livestock or animal agriculture. Yet our agriculture industry worried about this unnecessary burden for years. I have heard time and again directly from Nebraska's farmers and ranchers on how these regulations were cause for concern.

The FARM Act implementation delivers a permanent fix to this issue by providing ag producers with exemptions to animal waste reporting requirements.

In closing, I want to thank the bipartisan group of my Senate colleagues whose years of determined efforts paved the way for the fruition of these important measures, and I want to offer my sincere thanks to President Trump for following through on his commitment to rural America.

I look forward to seeing the positive results that these commonsense, bipartisan measures will bring to hard-working men and women in the good life and throughout America's heartland. I am proud to fight on behalf of Nebraska's farmers, ranchers, and ag producers, who continue to fuel and feed the world.

Thank you.

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