EPA Boosts Amount Of Ethanol In Gasoline Supply

It’s also unclear how EPA can simultaneously recognize the E10 blend wall and yet establish requirements that exceed those constraints.

“We know we need to continue to push the market so that lower greenhouse gas fuels get to consumers’ gas tanks”, said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

That will boost the amount of corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels in the US gasoline supply – but to a level far less than the 22.25 billion gallons in 2016 envisioned by a 2007 law.

Since then, the EPA has said the standards set by the law cannot be fully reached due partly to limits on the amount of renewable fuels other than ethanol that can be produced.

These numbers will “really drive the volumes significantly beyond where they have been in the last couple of years, which is what Congress intended, and that’s substantial growth, achievable growth”, McCabe said.

The EPA’s long-awaited Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates put the ethanol requirements for next year at 14.5 billion gallons, representing an increase from the agency’s May proposal and in line with figures reported by Reuters ahead of the announcement.

The final 2016 standard for advanced biofuel is almost 1 billion gallons, or 35 percent, higher than the actual 2014 volumes; the total renewable standard requires growth from 2014 to 2016 of more than 1.8 billion gallons of biofuel, which is 11 percent higher than 2014 actual volumes.

While this rule still relies on a flawed methodology that sets renewable fuel volumes below the statutory levels enacted by Congress, it is an important improvement from the proposed rule, and moves us closer to getting America’s most effective climate policy back on track and providing certainty for biofuels in the marketplace.

“In light of the EPA’s decision, we are evaluating our options”, he said. “Today’s decision, however, fails to do that”.

“Corn use looks to be nearly 300 million gallons, or about 100 million bushels of implied corn demand higher than trade expectations prior to the final release”.

Dineen added, “It will deepen uncertainty in the marketplace and thus chill investment in second-generation biofuels”. When farmers plow up grasslands and wetlands to grow corn, they release the carbon stored in the soil, contributing to climate-warming carbon emissions.