Food and fuel inflation is now the Achilles Heel of domestic politics as lawmakers continue to fight over the President’s multi-trillion dollar social spending-climate agenda. Hill Democrats see the president’s budget bill as key to advancing social and climate programs, plus farm conservation, forestry, research, and rural development.
But Republicans see the bill’s added two trillion in spending as fuel for inflation at the gas pump and grocery store. According to Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, “The government putting money in consumers’ hands and the people wanting to spend it, so we have great demand. And then, when you have inflation, labor costs go up, and the supermarkets and other places that process food, increase wages.”
Grassley says it will be up to moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema to decide what happens to the Biden “Build Back Better” budget, assuming House Democrats pass it possibly this week.
Fuel prices meantime are their highest in seven years and Renewable Fuel interests are arguing for more biofuel in the nation’s fuel supply to help bring down costs. Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor told Ag lawmakers, “Renewable fuels like ethanol remain the single most affordable and abundant source of low-carbon motor fuel on the planet and are critical to meeting carbon-reduction goals today. Recent research shows there is no path to net-zero emissions without biofuels.”
Skor says the EPA must finally approve a 15 billion-gallon Renewable Fuels Standard for this year and next.
“The annual blending requirements are woefully delayed. And, in recent weeks, unsettling media reports indicate that EPA may turn its back on greater biofuel blending. The Biden Administration simply cannot meet its climate goals while rolling back low-carbon biofuel blending requirements. We ask that the subcommittee help deliver this message to the administration.”
Skor also called on Congress to pass the Fuel Choice Act to allow year-round use of E15, now sidelined in the courts, which if restored, Skor says would save motorists over 12 billion dollars in fuel costs.
