The Renewable Fuels Association recommends that the California Air Resources Board require flex fuel vehicle capability in all new vehicles with internal combustion engines sold in California, at the earliest practical model year.

That recommendation was made in comments to CARB in response to a Drive Forward Light-Duty Vehicle Program Workshop on October 21.

“CARB’s number one guiding principle for the Drive Forward program, as stated in the staff presentation, ‘is to design stringent but flexible programs that achieve cost-effective emission reductions,’” wrote RFA Chief Economist Scott Richman. “RFA believes that implementing a well-structured combination of requirements and incentives to grow the market for higher-level ethanol blends such as E85 in California would be among the most affordable ways to achieve significant reductions in criteria and greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s light-duty vehicle population.”

Richman noted that emissions testing at the University of California, Riverside indicated statistically significant reductions in NOx, CO2, PM and cumulative BTEX emissions with E85 compared to E10, and that emissions of CO and NMOG-NOx trended lower with E85. Further, over the last few years, E85 has consistently sold at nearly two dollars per gallon less than regular gasoline.