WASHINGTON – The National Council of Chain Restaurants today released a statement from Executive Director Rob Green following the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal this week on the volume of corn ethanol that will be required to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply in 2018.
"True reform will only come when Congress gets its act together and finally eliminates the outdated ethanol mandate."
“We held out hope that the EPA would exercise its authority to adjust the RFS in the face of market realities, but we recognize that until Congress enacts major changes to the RFS, there’s little the administration can do to provide regulatory relief from the harmful corn ethanol mandate.
“The time for Congress to act is now. Bipartisan stakeholders from across the economy know that the RFS has failed and imposes unnecessary harm to the environment, food costs, land usage, global food security and taxpayers. It’s time to usher in a new era of non-food-sourced biofuels.
“True reform will only come when Congress gets its act together and finally eliminates the outdated ethanol mandate. Corn ethanol is a last-generation biofuel and is failing to provide the nation with the ‘bridge’ to the biofuels of the future that we were promised when the RFS was passed over a decade ago. It’s time to abandon the corn ethanol mandate once and for all.”
When the EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard was implemented in 2005, costs for vital food commodities including corn, grain, poultry and meat rose dramatically, impacting the entire food chain including food producers and restaurants.
“Because of the RFS, we’re only one drought, flood or other adverse weather event away from another roller-coaster ride in corn and soybean prices, which will hit consumers where it hurts – squarely in their wallets,” Green said.
The National Council of Chain Restaurants is the leading trade association exclusively representing chain restaurant companies. For more than 40 years, NCCR has worked to advance sound public policy that best serves the interests of restaurant businesses and the millions of people they employ. NCCR members include the country's most-respected quick-service and table-service chains. NCCR is a division of the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade group.