A letter circulating in the Senate this week is urging the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen the final biodiesel volumes in the pending Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rule.

The letter, sponsored by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), maintains that while the proposed rule is a step in the right direction after major delays—it still fails to recognize the domestic biodiesel industry’s full production potential.

“While the proposal put forward by EPA is an improvement over the November 2013 proposal, it would only grow biodiesel volumes to 1.9 billion gallons by 2017 which is just slightly more than the industry’s actual production of more than 1.8 billion gallons in 2013,” the letter states. “We believe the domestic biodiesel industry is fully capable of additional growth and urge the EPA to revise the volumes in the final rule. Based on the biodiesel industry’s projections for future capacity, growth, and demand, we believe increases to at least 2 billion gallons in 2016 and at least 2.3 billion gallons in 2017 would be reasonable and prudent.”

The deadline for signing the letter is July 10. The letter needs as many senators as possible to sign and show the Administration that biodiesel has strong, bipartisan, geographically diverse support in the Senate. The American Soybean Association (ASA) urges growers to contact their senators’ offices and ask them to sign the letter. To sign onto the letter, Senate offices should contact Kurt Kovarik in Sen. Grassley’s office (Kurt_Kovarik@grassley.senate.gov) or Josephine Eckert in Sen. Murray’s office (Josephine_Eckert@murray.senate.gov).