The comment period for the Green Jobs Waiver ended yesterday and the EPA has until December 1, 2009 to rule on the waiver request. Yesterday, The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), filed official comments with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. In addition, nearly 7,000 people signed ACE’s petition in support of the approval to blend up to E15 in gasoline. Signatures on the petition came from all 50 states, proof that ethanol is supported throughout the country – not just in the Midwest.
Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of ACE, commented, “Americans want to use more ethanol, and the number of people who have signed this petition in support of E15 demonstrates widespread grassroots support for ethanol. It is significant that the people listed here come from all 50 states, which shows that ethanol is not just a Midwestern issue. People all across the country recognize that Big Oil’s monopoly at the pump must be broken and that more ethanol represents meaningful consumer choice.”
Dissenters of the Green Jobs Waiver cite performance and drivability issues and call for more research to be completed before ruling on the waiver. However, Jennings noted that, “The science behind using more than E10 in standard vehicles in overwhelmingly positive, and the issue has been studied by many independent sources. This waiver request has been politicized by ethanol’s opponents, but the facts remain – there is nothing to show that using E15 would increase auto emissions or harm the vehicle’s emissions control system, the factors EPA is obligated to consider. The science is sound, and EPA must give its approval for this modest increase in the ethanol blend.”
To read the science behind the waiver request, ACE has created an E15 Action Center.
It is also clear that an allowance to go beyond E10 is necessary for the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) biofuels use targets to be met. The RFS calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be used annually by 2022, which represents much more than 10 percent of our nation’s total annual transportation fuel consumption. The existing E10 and E85 markets are not large enough to accommodate the amounts of biofuels prescribed by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, so an increase in the E10 blend will be necessary for the law to be fulfilled.