Senators of both parties joined forces last week to defeat a controversial bill that would have allowed gasoline with 15-percent ethanol to be sold year round.E15, less common than the more widely available E10, is currently available in 29 states. However, the federal government restricts its sale between June and September. Those federal rules were put in place to limit ozone, which causes smog during hot months.
E10 is available nationwide and year-round due to the Federal Renewable Fuel Standard, which was established in 2007 and requires increased amounts of ethanol to be blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. But, each year the program consistently falls short of the blend levels initially called for by Congress in the 2007 bill.
“With all the problems with the RFS it would be irresponsible of the Congress to give them this waiver without addressing the larger issues with the program,” Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) said on the Senate floor last week.
“The 2007 RFS, which I supported, had admirable goals. In particular, it sought to stimulate production of non-food-based, ultra-low carbon advanced and cellulosic fuels. However, these technologies have failed to significantly materialize,” said former Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and one of the loudest environmental voices in Congress during his time in Washington, said in a letter to Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Passage of the E15 bill is a top priority of the ethanol industry, offering a key opportunity to the ethanol sector as the expansion of E15 sales would have been a financial boon and, to some extent, a marketplace defeat for the oil industry. Ethanol sector leaders said that the battle for E15 is not finished.
The bill was co-sponsored by Republican Senators Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana.
The legislation, in the end, was unable to gain enough support in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Committee leaders announced last Friday that were would be no action on the bill before the August recess, though it is unclear whether it will be resurrected sometime in the fall.
