WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency decided on a waiver request to allow ethanol to be blended with gasoline at 15 percent, rather than the 10 percent that is allowed today. Ethanol producers filed the waiver petition back in March of 2009. A decision was supposed to be made by December of 2009, but it had been delayed again and again.
“While I’m glad to see that at long last the EPA has finally made a decision, I am frustrated that the EPA is approving E15 only for vehicles that are model year 2007 and newer. The fact is, that covers only about 20 percent of vehicles on the road today,” Grassley said. “The gains, while useful to the industry, are small in comparison to a full and complete waiver for E15 use in all vehicles.”
“The announcement unnecessarily complicates the fuel-supply chain and undermines real progress that a waiver for all vehicles would have provided to America’s domestic renewable fuel producers. It’s a matter of both energy independence and jobs,” Grassley said.