Year-Round E15: There’s More than One Way to Peel a Banana
Summary
Circuit Court of Appeals sided with oil refiners last July and struck down EPA’s regulation allowing year-round sales of E15, it would have been easy for the ethanol industry to give up and throw in the towel. Rather than accepting defeat in the wake of the court decision, RFA immediately went to work developing alternative strategies to restore the marketplace’s ability to sell E15 year-round nationwide. Extending E10’s RVP waiver to E15—the approach tried by EPA and rejected by the court—isn’t the only way to achieve regulatory parity and facilitate year-round sales for E15. Similar to the approach suggested by the governors, this would put E15 on equal regulatory footing with E10 and allow uninterrupted year-round sales of the higher blend. Meanwhile, RFA continues to lend its support to legislation introduced in both the House and Senate to remove the arcane E15 RVP barrier.