The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) wants senators to get some promises from Andrew Wheeler before they vote to confirm him as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

ACE CEO Brian Jennings sent a letter to U.S. Senators this week asking them to “secure tangible documentation on two critically important ethanol issues” – finalizing a Reid vapor pressure (RVP) rule to allow E15 use year-round before the summer driving season, and reallocating ethanol blending obligations waived under the Small Refinery Exemption (SRE) provision of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

The RVP rule is particularly time-sensitive because it needs to be finished before June 1. But Jennings says the government shutdown is not a credible excuse for a delay in the rulemaking, noting as an example how USDA put forward a new food stamp work requirement proposal in just eight days. “It has been more than 100 days since the President directed EPA to initiate a rulemaking to allow E15 use year-round,” the letter stated. “What is taking EPA so long to act?”

EPA intends to combine the RVP rule with reforms to the way Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) are handled under the RFS, but in the letter Jennings told senators that Wheeler “should be encouraged to decouple RIN reforms from the RVP rule to ensure E15 can be offered for sale by June 1.”
Read the letter.