Chip Roy: “I understand my friends who come from States that want support for farming. We all want to make sure that we are…”

“I understand my friends who come from States that want support for farming. We all want to make sure that we are figuring that out. We worked through the farm bill. I just think we ought to be going about this a different way. If we need to do something to support farmers, let's have a direct conversation about it. Expanding E15 is just the wrong direction to go. It is going to harm refiners. It is going to drive up the cost of gas. I think it is going to drive up the price of energy, generally. It is, in fact, a mandate. It is an expansion of the mandate. That is what the practical effects of it will be. Truthfully, I have no problem if you want to pull back on the Clean Air Act in terms of what it does with respect to the E15 requirement in the summer, but then let's modify the Renewable Fuel Standard. We have created this botched system. We are making it massively difficult for refining capacity to grow in the United States. We are not actually solving the problem here. What we are doing instead is trying to put a Band-Aid on it, which expands the mandate. It doesn't fix the Renewable Fuel Standard, which is the core of the problem. It is trying to backdoor into farm subsidies while doing it on the back of our energy and gas policy. Mr. Speaker, this bill should go to committee. This bill should be amended and debated.”