[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) released the following statement in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed changes to allow gasoline to be blended with up to 15 percent ethanol (E15) year-round:
“This action is long overdue – now it’s time for the administration to stop abusing small refinery waivers and end its other harmful policies that are hurting farmers and contributing to the idling and closing of ethanol plants. I will work with my colleagues to ensure these proposed policy changes benefit American farmers, not billion dollar big oil companies.”
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Duckworth has also been a vocal supporter of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which supports a $5 billion biofuel industry in Illinois that employs more than 4,000 people. She has joined farmers across Illinois in urging the EPA to adopt higher ethanol-based fuel requirements and she has been critical of efforts within the Trump Administration to undermine it by shifting the point of obligation for meeting the RFS from oil refiners to blenders, and to grant waivers to profitable large oil refineries and allow them to avoid having to meet RFS requirements at a time when a growing number of ethanol plants are idling.
