Almost 200 House members want the Environmental Protection Agency to halt its plan to increase the amount of biofuels required in gasoline next year.
The 184 lawmakers from both parties sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Wednesday expressing their concern about the agency’s plan to increase the Renewable Fuel Standard, which is the amount of biofuel that is added to gasoline.
Instead of requiring gasoline to contain a certain percentage of biofuel, the Renewable Fuel Standard requires a certain amount of biofuel to be added to gasoline every year. The standard would be increased to 36 billion gallons of biofuels added to the nation’s gasoline supply by 2022.
Based on Energy Information Administration estimates of decreasing gasoline demand, that amount of biofuels in gasoline could damage vehicle engines, which can’t handle more than a 10-percent blend, the lawmakers wrote.
“This proposal is problematic not only in principle, but it is also impractical since it would take decades, not months, to build out the compatible vehicle fleet and install the necessary retail infrastructure to accommodate the higher blends of ethanol,” the letter says.
The EPA is expected to revise the 2014 and 2015 Renewable Fuel Standard down to reflect the reality of gasoline use, but it is set to increase again in 2016. That increase, the EPA has acknowledged, would go past the “blend wall,” or the point at which car engines can safely handle the amount of biofuel in gasoline.
The retroactive amount for 2014 would be 15.93 billion gallons of biofuel. The standard for 2015 would be 16.3 billion gallons and 17.4 billion gallons in 2016. Those amounts are below the targets specified by Congress in the Clean Air Act.
The EPA is set to announce a final rule for 2014, 2015 and 2016 on Nov. 30.
The EPA’s inspector general is investigating how the agency has implemented the Renewable Fuel Standard and how it has complied with the reporting requirements authorizing the standard.
There have been TV and radio ads urging the EPA to not increase the standard beyond the blend wall in 2016, while a group of California House members sent a letter to the EPA urging the agency to increase the standard to the level originally intended by Congress.
However, the 184 members of Congress who wrote to the EPA Wednesday report that even the lowered 2016 standard would harm a large proportion of the nation’s engines.
According to the letter, the EPA says more E15 and E85 fuel would need to be used in 2016 to meet the standard. The AAA auto club calculates that 5 percent of vehicles currently on the road can use E15, and the Energy Information Agency estimates just 6 percent of vehicles can use E85. E15 has a 15 percent blend of ethanol in gasoline, while E85 is 85 percent ethanol, which flexible fuel vehicles can handle.
In addition, 2 percent of the nation’s gas stations sell E85 and just 100 sell E15, the letter says.
