[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 4010]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1220
           GET THE FACTS BEFORE BLAMING RENEWABLE FUEL SECTOR

  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of media coverage on 
RINs. A RIN is a renewable identification number which is given to 
refiners upon the purchase of renewable fuels. It is then used by 
refiners every February to establish that they have met their previous 
year's obligation under the Renewable Fuels Standard.
  These recent stories raise a question as to why RINs are being blamed 
in the increase in gasoline prices. RINs are given away for free by 
ethanol and other renewable fuel producers to the refiners and only 
have value in the submission of the reports in February. We are 
currently in the month of March and soon to be in April. There are 
questions that need to be asked on why such swift dramatic price shifts 
are being reported in the market? Are speculators at work?
  There is an excess of over 2 billion RINs. Why is that not proving 
and providing stability? I encourage the media to ask these types of 
questions, but to simply jump on and blame the renewable fuel sector is 
incorrect.

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