Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I have concerns about how this bill is being considered today.

The Environment Subcommittee has not held a single hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard in the 119th session of Congress. CBO has said that this bill will have a significant impact on our budget. Yet, there has not been any legislative record, independent analysis, or technical assistance from EPA that could help us better understand its consequences.

We know that this bill will affect USDA programs, the highway trust fund, and vehicle fuel economy to some extent. We also know that it will have consequences for the RFS RIN market. Reducing demand for RINs by not reallocating small refiners' gallons will affect RIN prices, and it seems likely that producers and retailers of advanced biofuels will be the ones who suffer the most.

Mr. Speaker, this might just be assumptions on my part, but that is all we have to go on because this bill failed to have any legislative process to help us best understand these complex issues. I hope our counterparts in the Senate will take the time to do a proper review of this proposal.

I also hope that EPA does not interpret this bill as having any sort of congressional intent that would lead to increasing the annual volumes of conventional biofuels beyond its historic 15 billion gallons per year.

Despite my serious concerns with this bill's process, I will acknowledge that administrations have been granting year-round E15 waivers for years. If that is going to continue to be the case, it simply makes sense to codify. I also acknowledge that the RFS' small refinery exemptions have been a source of uncertainty and litigation, and that process should be reformed.

While I have reluctantly supported this bill, it is such a huge missed opportunity. For one, it does nothing to recognize a significant and growing segment of the fuel pool, that being electricity. We should be providing certainty for e-RIN pathways. There is no good reason to keep electricity produced from qualified feedstocks out of the program. Frankly, that is not even enough.

As long as we continue to have a volumetric approach to our national fuel program, it will be filled with uncertainty, unnecessary litigation, and worse outcomes for both consumers and, yes, for our environment. We should embrace a performance-based clean fuel standard that rewards fuels of all types for their pollution reduction.

While this bill is a missed opportunity, I can at least recognize that E15 is about 30 cents per gallon cheaper, and we know that Americans are feeling a lot of pain at the pump due to President Trump and his disastrous, illegal war with Iran.

Today, the average gas price is $4.51 per gallon. Compare that to under $3 a gallon before the war started. The $200 billion that the administration has previously said was necessary for this war could have been better used to incentivize more than 26 million people to buy an American-made electric vehicle.

Instead, Republicans have repealed the tax credit that was allowing people to take back some control and end their dependence on volatile oil markets.

While I support this bill today, I hope that Republicans will get serious about what it is going to take to lower energy prices for Americans and enact a sensible, long-term fuels policy for our country.

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