Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has filed a motion for summary judgment to compel EPA to finalize action ahead of the 2024 summer driving season to allow Midwest states to sell E15 year-round.
Current federal regulations set different requirements for E10 and E15 ethanol blends during the summer driving season from June 1 to September 15. In April of 2022, eight Midwest governors, led by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds used their Clean Air Act authority to equalize the summer regulations for E10 and E15.
EPA proposed a rule in March to allow for the 15% ethanol blend, Unleaded 88, in the eight states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin, but the agency has not finalized the rule. In August, the Iowa and Nebraska attorneys general sued EPA to finalize the rule to give approval for the states’ waiver for year-round E15 use. Bird's motion, filed Wednesday, seeks to force EPA to act.
“Biofuels leaders in Iowa, Nebraska, and other states have been more than patient. For more than a year past the statutory deadline they've waited for EPA to follow the law and allow them to make E15 available in their states year-round,” Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor said in a statement, saying EPA should have acted by July 2022.
“With the summer 2024 driving season just around the corner, we are hopeful that this action by Iowa and Nebraska will compel the Biden administration to finalize the E15 rule as quickly as possible,” Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper said in an email statement to Agri-Pulse.
In EPA’s motion, the agency urged the court to set a “reasonable deadline” as EPA considers “numerous administrative petitions seeking to delay the effective date of the final rule.” EPA said it currently intends to issue a final rule by March 28.
Cooper said RFA sees “absolutely no reason” for the court to have an additional four months to consider the Midwest governors’ request.
“The agency says it is ‘actively working’ to finalize the rule before summer 2024, but waiting until the last minute isn’t good for anyone,” Cooper said. “We are hopeful that the court will view the administration’s proposed timeline as unreasonable and compel EPA to finalize the rule before the end of this year.”
EPA stated in its court motion that “this rulemaking is the first time EPA has promulgated a final rule under this provision of the Clean Air Act, and while the rule will be applicable in only eight states, it will impact the fuel system throughout much of the United States.
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“The final rule will likely address the production of new additional grades of gasoline at refineries, and thus requires extensive coordination between parties in the fuel distribution system to distribute these new additional grades, and ultimately make them available at retail outlets in the petitioning states."
Growth Energy reports that the number of E15 stations has grown over the last decade from two in 2012 to 2,758 in 2022 and more than 3,000 in 31 states this year.
The eight Midwest states represent over 10% of all fuel sales, over half of the nation’s E15 fueling stations, over 70% of the nation’s ethanol plants, and nearly 70% of the corn grown in the United States.
In comments on EPA’s proposed rule earlier this year, Chris Bliley, Growth Energy senior vice president of regulatory affairs, said a “switch from E10 to E15 nationwide would result in an additional [greenhouse gas] savings of 17.62 million tons per year, the equivalent of removing approximately 3.85 million vehicles from the road.”
Bliley also said E15 provided consumers with a significantly lower-cost fuel option at the pump, with savings of $0.16/gallon nationwide and up to $0.96/gallon in certain locations. “If E15 were to replace E10 on a nationwide basis, consumer spending on motor fuel would decrease by $20.6 billion,” Bliley wrote.
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