In boon to farmers, Trump lifts restrictions on ethanol
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — The Trump administration is moving to allow year-round sales of gasoline with higher blends of ethanol, a boon for Iowa and other farm states that have pushed for greater sales of the corn-based fuel.
The change will lift the federal ban on summer sales of gasoline with highethanol blends and allow them year-round. The EPA currently bans the highethanol blend, called E15, during the summer because of concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days. Ethanol industry advocates say that fear is unfounded.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands, Trump said he was delivering a promise he’d made to Iowa voters years ago when he campaigned ahead of the state’s caucuses.
“Promises made, promises kept,” he said. He charged that if Democrats take control of Congress next month, they will seek to roll back his efforts.
The announcement is something of a reward to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman led a contentious but successful fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The veteran Republican lawmaker is the Senate’s leading ethanol proponent and sharply criticized the Trump administration’s proposed rollback in ethanol volumes earlier this year.
Grassley called the proposal “a very good victory for agriculture,” ethanol workers and the environment. “Everything about this is good, good, good,” Grassley said Tuesday after he and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, met with Trump at the White House.
Lifting the summer ban is expected to be coupled with new restrictions on trading biofuel credits that underpin the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, commonly known as the ethanol mandate. The law sets out how much cornbased ethanol and other renewable fuels refiners must blend into gasoline each year.
The Renewable Fuel Standard was intended to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster the rural economy by requiring a steady increase in renewable fuels over time. The mandate has not worked as intended, and production levels of renewable fuels, mostly ethanol, routinely fail to reach minimum thresholds set in law.
The oil industry opposes year-round sales of E15, warning that high-ethanol gasoline can damage engines and fuel systems of older cars and motorcycles. Some carmakers have warned against high-ethanol blends, though EPA has approved use of E15 in all light-duty vehicles built since 2001.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers sent Trump a letter last week opposing expanded sales of highethanol gas. The lawmakers called the approach “misguided,” and said it would do nothing to protect refinery jobs and “could hurt millions of consumers whose vehicles and equipment are not compatible with higher-ethanol blended gasoline.”
A spokeswoman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry trade group, said allowing E15 to be sold year-round would give consumers greater access to clean, low- cost, higher- octane fuel while expanding market access for ethanol producers.
“The ability to sell E15 all year would also bring a significant boost to farmers across our country” and provide a significant economic boost to rural America, said spokeswoman Rachel Gantz.