The Biden-Harris EPA published a new federal “good neighbor” rule on June 5—the plan is an ozone emissions rule that requires states located “upwind” of other states to further decrease their emissions in order to help the “downwind” states meet their requirements. This expansive rule is yet another example of federal overreach by the administration, targeting 21 states as “out of compliance.”
At the beginning of June, President Biden announced that a new debt ceiling deal had been reached. The deal became the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which the president signed into law on June 3. The FRA lifts the federal debt ceiling until 2025, kicking the fiscal can down the road and ignoring the key drivers of our national debt. The plan allows unlimited borrowing and spending until 2025, waters down spending cuts, and erodes defense spending at a time when tensions with American adversaries are growing—clearly failing to meet the seriousness of our fiscal moment the real solutions it requires.
On June 21, the EPA issued a final rule establishing new biofuel volume requirements for 2023 to 2025. The new renewable fuel standards set ethanol blending levels nearly a billion gallons more than the federal government’s projected transportation fuel demand. The requirements will keep Renewable Identification Number prices astronomically high, hurting independent refiners.
