Photo by Andrew Seaman.
With smaller-than-expected cuts to the ethanol mandate released on Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency signaled its willingness to surpass the ethanol blend wall, spurring many to call for a revamp of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
While the blend wall – the theoretical maximum amount of ethanol the U.S. fuel supply can tolerate – has been pegged at 10 percent pretty much since the RFS was enacted as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the EPA’s finalization of its ethanol requirement numbers pushed that figure to 10.1 percent (18.11 billion gallons) for 2016.
While that ratio of ethanol to gasoline has never previously pushed past the 10 percent blend wall, it has steadily approached it as of late. According to the final numbers released on Monday, about 9.2 percent of the total fuel supply (16.28 billion gallons) came from renewable fuels in 2014 and about 9.5 percent (16.93 billion gallons) in 2015.
Back in May, the EPA proposed adding 17.4 billion gallons of renewable fuel, or about 9.7 percent of the total fuel supply. Analysts suggested then that the EPA foresaw a decreased demand for fuel and feared the effects of hitting the blend wall. Both of those factors appear to have reversed in the last six months.
While neither the blend wall nor the ethanol mandate figures directly relate to the amount of ethanol in a gallon of fuel at the pump, E10 has already become widespread and the availability of E15, which was approved for use in 2012, has increased throughout the Midwest, in part thanks to a $210 million program that the USDA implemented in October to provide 5,000 new blender pumps in 21 states.
These moves come despite mounting criticism of the RFS and the EPA over the last several months. Ethanol backers have accused the EPA of dragging its feet – as originally enacted, the RFS called for the U.S. fuel supply to include 22.25 billion gallons (or 12.4 percent) of renewables.
“EPA’s decision today turns our nation’s most successful energy policy on its head,” the pro-ethanol Renewable Fuels Association’s Bob Dineen said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General began a critical review of the RFS in October, right about the same time a University of Tennessee study of the RFS’s impact noted that it has led to more harm than good. The Environmental Working Group has spoken out against the RFS’s dependency on corn ethanol. And the bipartisan group of legislators behind the RFS Reform Act, echoing the concerns about the RFS raised earlier this year, have also called the EPA’s finalized numbers “terribly disappointing.”
“The RFS requirements announced today will push ethanol volumes beyond the blendwall in 2016, leaving American consumers and our economy to feel the negative effects,” the legislators wrote in their own statement. “While well-intentioned, it’s now abundantly clear the RFS is a broken policy.”
The RFS Reform Act, H.R. 704, which would prohibit the sale of E15 and essentially gut the post-2014 ethanol requirements in the RFS, received the backing of SEMA in August, but has sat in committee since the bill was introduced in February.
More gadget review in www.mamaktalk.com
