The House of Representatives passed the freestanding Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, which authorizes year-round E15. The bill is now in the Senate but hasn’t passed yet. Bill Leigh, an Illinois farmer and member of the Corn Board at the National Corn Growers Association, said this is one of multiple priorities right now.
“Well, the NCGA, we’ve been working very diligently on trying to get the year-round E15 waiver into law, to make a law that allows E15 for year-round use. So, we have to still get it through the Senate. There are not a lot of legislative days left, it seems like, because they will go to an August vacation, and then when they come back, they pretty much go into reelection mode. There are bills within the Senate that are must-pass, so that, hopefully, year-round E15, which is a standalone bill right now, can get included with something.”
Leigh said corn farmers aren’t sure why it’s been so difficult to get year-round E15 passed into law. It’s a win-win deal for a large number of people.
“A lot of people have comments on it. E15 should be a win for the consumer. We’re seeing, typically, a decrease in their fuel prices of 15 to 50 cents, and we have some instances as much as $1 lower than 87 octane, which some of the national board members have taken pictures of at their local stations. The importance of getting this done as a piece of law is because, since 2019, we’ve had emergency waivers from the EPA to allow summertime use of E15, but there’s no certainty in that, because that’s a 20-day waiver. So, every 20 days, the EPA administrator has to get another waiver, so it’s a whole summertime for the three months of the summer. This law would make it permanent.”
Year-round E15 law would give much more certainty to U.S. consumers and retailers.
“Included in that also is a provision to make the infrastructure that would have been enough for E10 then be good enough for E15. That brings a whole lot of stations that are dispensers that are selling fuels into the market.”