This week, CURE joined conservative leaders in sending a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) expressing opposition to H.R. 1346, the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025. The legislation would authorize a year-round mandate of a fuel blend containing 15 percent ethanol for gasoline sales.
Representatives Scott Perry (R-PA) and Chip Roy (R-TX) recently authored an article in The Hill, stating that the mandate, commonly referred to as “E15”, is “the ethanol lobby’s Trojan horse to expand one of the most costly and destructive federal mandates in U.S. history: the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
The letter argues that Congress should not mistake an expansion of ethanol mandates for genuine free-market energy reform. Higher ethanol blends are not truly competitive on their own merits. If they were, they wouldn’t require federal blending mandates. After two decades of federal mandates, subsidies, tax preferences, and more, the ethanol industry still remains dependent on government intervention to sustain demand and maintain market share.
Our letter says that this legislation “would further entrench a federally managed fuel mandate regime that has distorted energy markets, burdened consumers, harmed independent refiners, and expanded corporate welfare for politically connected ethanol interests.”
America deserves fuel freedom grounded in open competition. This legislation represents another attempt to expand a federal policy framework that rewards politically favored industries at the expense of consumers, taxpayers, and free-market competition. CURE calls for Congress to reject H.R. 1346, repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard, and end this anti-free market federal mandate that continues to pass on higher costs to consumers.
