June 17, 2010
EPA decision on ethanol blend put off until fall
Published in Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency says it will wait until this fall to decide whether car engines can handle higher concentrations of ethanol in gasoline.The agency had been expected to decide by this month whether to increase the maximum blend from 10 to 15 percent.
The EPA said Thursday that initial tests "look good" and should be completed by the end of September. A decision will come after the Energy Department completes the testing of the higher blend on vehicles built after 2007.The ethanol industry has maintained that there is sufficient evidence to show that a 15 percent ethanol blend in motor fuel will not harm the performance of car engines. But the refining industry, small engine manufacturers and some environmental groups have argued against an increase.
The EPA has indicated in the past that they will raise the blend, saying a congressional mandate for increased ethanol use can't be achieved without allowing higher blends of the renewable fuel, most of which comes from corn. Congress has required refiners to blend 12.9 billion gallons of biofuels in 2010, of which 12 billion gallons would be ethanol. The mandate soars to 36 billion gallons, mostly ethanol, by 2022. Ethanol groups immediately expressed disappointment with the delay. Tom Buis, president of Growth Energy, the ethanol group that filed the original petition for the increase, used the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an argument in a letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday.
"With fossil fuels getting dirtier, costlier and riskier to extract, as we are witnessing with the epic catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, now is the time we should move on expanding the production and consumption of clean, renewable fuels like ethanol," he said.
