(July 26, 2013) WASHINGTON — The Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) submitted its fifth RFS White Paper response to the House Energy and Commerce Committee today, covering the topic of RFS Implementation.

AEC Executive Director Brooke Coleman issued the following statement:

“One of the benefits of this white paper process is it allows Congress to pressure test some of the arguments being offered by the oil industry to support the notion that the RFS is not working. The oil trades have testified before Congress that buying a RIN credit is a cost of compliance with the RFS, when in fact it’s a voluntary cost of non-compliance. The oil trades are dancing around the fact that their members receive a RIN for free when they acquire a gallon of renewable fuel, and may be the ones profiting from higher RIN prices. The oil trades are pretending that they cannot blend more renewable fuel, while some of their members threaten franchisees who are trying to do just that. There are things that could be improved administratively with the RFS, including greater transparency in RIN trading markets, but hopefully this process will separate fact from fiction when it comes to RFS implementation. There are only downsides to re-legislating the RFS just one third of the way through a 15 year commitment.”

The AEC response can be downloaded here.