Mo Brooks, Bradley Byrne, Gary Palmer among reps telling EPA: No more ethanol in our gas

Alabama congressional delegates Mo Brooks, Bradley Byrne, Gary Palmer and Robert Aderholt are among 184 conservative-leaning members of Congress urging the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon a new Renewable Fuel Standard plan.

The proposal calls for increased levels of biofuel blending in the nation’s gasoline supply, a controversial policy embraced by few Republicans.

The House members signed a letter Thursday addressed to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy calling on her to use the agency’s statutory authority to waive a provision passed by Congress in 2007 set to expand biofuel blending levels next year, breaching the current “E10 blendwall” which governs current levels.

“Multiple studies have shown detrimental economic harm may be caused by breaching the E10 blendwall,” wrote lawmakers, citing a Congressional Budget Office report that predicted the change could raise the price of fuel by 26 cents per gallon.

They also cited a paper by the think tank Charles Rivers Associates, which said the blendwall increase would lead to “limited availability, higher consumer costs, and fewer sales of conventional transportation fuels.”

The group called the EPA’s current plans to implement the biofuel changes “impractical,” as it would take “decades, not months to build out the compatible vehicle fleet” and infrastructure necessary to accommodate the new, higher-ethanol gasoline required by the proposal.