The American Petroleum Institute (API) Tuesday came out against the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025, which it had previously supported, citing “sweeping changes to federal biofuel policy, state volatility mandates, and market conditions (that) have upended the fuels landscape.”

In a letter to congressional leadership, API urged “a more balanced and up-to-date approach to E15 legislation, warning the current proposal no longer reflects today’s fuel market realities.” The letter details how recent changes to federal tax rules, EPA decisions, and state-level policy reversals have imposed new costs on refiners and disrupted the fuels marketplace.

One of the oil industry’s issues is EPA’s proposal to expand the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In a Washington Examiner op-ed last week, two refinery executives claimed that expansion “directly raises gasoline prices and threatens America’s oil refineries.”

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper refuted that assertion in his own op-ed this week, arguing that independent studies show how ethanol blending drives pump prices down by as much as 77 cents per gallon, and that claims the RFS is driving refineries out of business are “absurd.”

“What’s really at-play is competition,” said Cooper. “Refiners have historically preferred a closed system where petroleum products dominate the market. The RFS opened that system up, allowing homegrown American fuel producers to compete on a level playing field….Opponents want to pit refiners against farmers, but that’s a false choice. America’s energy future depends on both.”

Meanwhile, the future of nationwide, year-round E15 remains elusive as opposition to the bill by the oil industry may make it even more difficult pass before the end of the year.