Washington, D.C. – As Americans contend with government mandates to blend ethanol into the nation’s fuel supplies, prices are simultaneously increasing at the grocery store at an alarming rate. U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, both R-Wyo., are working to decrease the impacts of increased ethanol usage and Americans’ increasing grocery bills and are urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take steps to ease the food inflation.

In a letter to the Administrator of the EPA, Enzi, Barrasso and 22 other senators laid out the severe situation of high food prices and the link to these high prices with the mandated increase in ethanol use. Enzi and Barrasso also think the impact of corn prices is especially difficult for Wyoming’s ranching families and their pocket books are hit at the grocery store and the feed bin.

“American families are feeling the financial strain of these food-to-fuel mandates in the grocery aisle and are growing concerned about the emerging environmental concerns of growing corn-based ethanol,” the senators wrote to the EPA in an April 24 letter. “It is essential for the EPA to respond quickly to the consequences of these mandates.”

By 2015 fuel marketers are required to blend15 billion gallons of corn ethanol into the nation’s fuel supplies. The senators asked the EPA to take advantage of sections of the law written purposely to provide authority to the EPA to waive ethanol mandates outlined in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) for the benefit of all Americans.

“Congress made the mandates in the EISA different from existing mandates to provide flexibility and to encourage innovation in advanced and cellulosic fuels. We believe today’s circumstances merit the use of this flexibility,” the senators wrote.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that food inflation is rising by 4.9 percent and other studies predict that food inflation could increase by 7 to 8 percent in the next few years.