By Jim Anderson/Illinois Radio Network
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set a new renewable fuel requirement.
The renewable fuel standard is a 10-year-old law that requires increasing amounts of renewable fuel to replace petroleum, but the standard for last year, this year and next year hasn’t been set yet by the EPA. It was supposed to be finalized two years ago.
Durbin said the delay is hurting the biofuel industry.
“It’s time for a decision. How can you build an industry, how can you make capital investments, how can you create jobs with so much uncertainty?” he said at a news conference in Washington, joined by a handful of other Democratic senators.
The issue is bipartisan, though, with 37 signatories on a hurry-up letter to the EPA administrator, including the following neighboring-state senators: Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
Durbin said renewable fuel cleans up the environment, and supports 5,000 jobs in Illinois.
