<article><p class="lead">Next year's new Congress offers mixed prospects for changing federal fuel blending mandates, trade groups said this week.</p><p>Efforts fizzled in both the US House of Representatives and Senate to modify the decade-old Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), fuel blending mandates that require refiners, importers and others to ensure minimum volumes of renewables enter US gasoline and diesel every year. Both opponents and supporters of the program want more certainty around its future. Critics sought a legislative time table to end the program, while proponents wanted Congress to protect and reaffirm the mandate's goals of rising renewable fuel use. </p><p>Changes in both chambers would complicate those efforts, API downstream director Frank Macchiarola said this week. Patchwork changes by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were more likely, he said.</p><p>"RFS reform has sort of bedeviled both parties since its inception," Macchiarola said. "Obviously, fixing this program remains a priority for us. It does not appear that RFS reform is a priority for Congress, at this point."</p><p>Consensus-building led by US senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) <a href="http://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/1686717">slowed in May</a> and appeared to fizzle by July. President Donald Trump <a href="http://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/1769617">announced an executive action</a> on one of the key negotiating pieces over the past year — support for the summer sale of higher-ethanol gasoline blends — in the run up to November elections. Cornyn did not respond to a request for comment on the prospect for changing the mandates next year. </p><p>US Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois) as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this year held several hearings on alternatives to the fuel blending mandates, including a requirement for higher-octane gasoline blends supported by refiners and General Motors. Ethanol provides a relatively inexpensive source of octane. His staff said that work was not over for the year. </p><p>Expected House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman US representative Frank Pallone Jr (D-New Jersey) included "investing in green energy", climate change and "environmental protections gutted over the last two years" among his priorities for the committee in the next Congress. </p><p>He was skeptical in April as the committee's ranking member of discussions around the higher octane standard. His office did not respond to requests for comment this week.</p><p>But the next Congress will have new reasons to revisit the law. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will publish blending mandates for next year by the end of this month. Because EPA has repeatedly needed to lower requirements from those set by Congress ten years ago, the agency must "reset" annual targets for 2020-2022. That work will begin in January, based on regulatory filings. Both the reset and the considerably greater control EPA will hold over requirements after 2022 could give both sides a reason to press Congress for longer-term solutions, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) senior vice president for regulatory affairs Derrick Moran said.</p><p>"The case, again, for it is uncertainty," Moran said. "It would be better to have a pathway."</p><p>There was no reason to assume a divided Congress would inhibit legislation on the mandates, Bracewell energy lobbyist Scott Segal said.</p><p>"Divided government often creates the conditions for action on controversial environmental topics," Segal said. "The last major, large-scale reform of the Clean Air Act featured a Democratic Congress and a Republican White House, so it makes sense to push for RFS reforms during the next Congress."</p></article>
