President Trump outlined an initiative to help both the ethanol and petroleum industries on Thursday that includes the year-round sale of E15, a gasoline blend richer in corn ethanol than the traditional 10 percent blend. “We’re going to be also helping the refineries,” said the president, referring without detail to a two-year “transition period.”
The year-round sale of E15 — gasoline that is 15 percent ethanol — is a long-held goal of ethanol makers and farm groups to boost biofuel sales. A coalition of retailers, refinery workers, and oil refiners said administration action on the Renewable Fuel Standard “must include mandatory cost containment for RINs.” Refiners buy RINs, which serve as credits for ethanol use, when they do not blend enough ethanol to comply with RFS targets.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blocked Senate confirmation of Agriculture Undersecretary Bill Northey for four months while trying to get the White House to cap RIN prices. A Philadelphia refinery blamed the high cost of RINs for its bankruptcy early this year.
During a meeting with governors and lawmakers, the president said, “We’re working on ethanol, and it’s really working out. … I will say, early — and now this is no guarantee — but we’re going to raise it up to 15 percent, which makes a lot of people happy. We’re going to go to 12 months, which makes a lot of farmers very happy.”
At present, the EPA bars the sale of E15 during the summer because ethanol evaporates more readily in warm weather.
Trump said the ban on summer sales was “unnecessary” and added, “So we’re going to work out something during the transition period, which is not easy, very complicated, because we have to take care of our refineries. We have to take care of a lot of other people. But we’re working on a transition now, because there will be a two-year period of time that we have a little bit of complexity while things are happening, while things are being built.”
A group of midwestern senators said that while Trump’s comments on E15 were welcome, the EPA also should stop issuing waivers to small-volume refineries, which the senators say use them to avoid complying with the RFS. The Renewable Fuels Association estimates the waivers may effectively reduce the RFS by a billion gallons in 2017.