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Ethanol Update: Auto dealers, Reid vapor pressure, E15 and the RFS

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This week’s Ethanol Update is short, but as always, packed with some great info. When you’re traveling this Holiday season, be sure to fill up with cleaner burning, renewable, homegrown ethanol fuels!

Auto dealer resources
Our friends at Growth Energy have put together a resources page for auto dealers to address misconceptions about ethanol. The page, which includes a video, showroom posters and facts about ethanol fuel, can be viewed here.

If you have a relationship with your local automotive dealer, make sure they’re aware of the page. Dispelling ethanol myths starts at the grassroots level.

Leveling the playing field
In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Renewable Fuels Association is calling for an end to an out-of-date regulation that serves as a major obstacle to E15.

“Many gasoline retailers have rejected E15 because EPA’s current gasoline volatility regulations make it nearly impossible for them to sell E15 to EPA-approved conventional automobiles year-round,” writes Bob Dinneen, RFA President and CEO.

Reid vapor pressure (RVP) is a common term for gasoline volatility. RVP is regulated by EPA during the summer O-zone season. EPA has granted a RVP waiver only to E10 and not other ethanol blends, creating an uneven playing field for higher ethanol blends on the market.

“The 1-psi RVP waiver – originally provided to expand the production and use of fuel ethanol – is now having the perverse effect of discouraging greater ethanol use in today’s gasoline market, and it is obstructing the successful implementation of important fuel and carbon reduction policies enacted since then, including the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Dineen writes.

You can read the entire RFA letter here.

E15 on a roll in Minnesota
Momentum continues to build for E15 in Minnesota.

Minnesota drivers are on pace to use 2.4 million gallons of E15 in 2015, shattering last year’s record of 257,855 gallons. An increase in the number of flex-fuel pumps dispensing E15 and the number of stations offering the fuel are playing a major role in the fuel catching on with consumers.

More details on E15’s success in Land of 10,000 Lakes can be read here.

Fallout on RFS numbers
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley expects congressional and legal action following EPA’s decision to cut the Renewable Fuel Standard below what Congress originally intended.

“I think, quite frankly, they’re violating the law,” said Grassley.

You can read more of Grassley’s comments here.

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