Following the American Petroleum Industry’s (API) annual “State of American Energy” speech, Tom Buis, co-chair of Growth Energy, issued the following statement:
“API’s ‘State of American Energy’ speech, brought to you by Big Oil, is nothing new. While oil companies talk about the future of energy in this country, they seem fixated on a finite resource and fail to acknowledge that renewable fuels play a critical role in meeting the nation’s growing energy needs.
“Year after year, API attempts to drive the narrative that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) must be reformed or repealed. This argument is fundamentally flawed. The claims that renewable fuels will increase the cost of energy or that they are worse for the environment are simply ridiculous. Countless independent studies have shown that renewable fuels like ethanol help drive down the cost of fuel. Furthermore, when it comes environmental damage, no one has a worse record than oil companies. Their record of ecological disasters is extensive and deeply troubling. Between 2008 and 2014, more than 25,000 oil spills accounted for more than 217 million gallons of oil and petroleum based products being dis¬charged into U.S. navigable waterways, territorial waters, tributar¬ies, the contiguous zone, onto shoreline, or into other waters and land that threaten the environment. That’s an average of more than 30 million gallons spilled a year. In contrast, ethanol is biodegradable and no beaches have ever been closed due to an ethanol spill.
“They claim the RFS is a ‘relic’ that is no longer useful, but the fact is that the RFS has been a resounding success, doing exactly what it was intended to do when a bipartisan Congress passed it over a decade ago.
“The RFS is the most successful energy policy this nation has enacted in the last 40 years. Not only is it creating jobs, it is revitalizing rural economies, reducing harmful emissions, improving our environment and reducing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuel. Additionally, it is providing consumers with a choice at the pump.
“API notes the importance of consumers in their speech, yet seems to believe the American consumer is best served by denying them a choice. Furthermore, they attempt to distort the truth saying there is no demand for renewable fuels. Yet major retail chains like Sheetz, Kum & Go, MAPCO and others are adopting higher blends and offering them to consumers and seeing tremendous success and growing demand.
“The bottom line is that API wants to kill any competition that may threaten their bottom line and record profits. They will stop at nothing to end the Renewable Fuel Standard, blocking the wide spread adoption of renewable fuels that consumers demand by maintaining the so-called “blend wall” to prevent market access for higher blends of biofuels such as E15 to ensure that their lock on the fuels market goes unchecked.
“The RFS is a win-win for America, as it is an essential part of a true ‘all of the above’ energy strategy needed to meet the growing energy demands of the 21st century.”
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