Retailers fight against Blend Wall myths during Congressional Briefing.

April 18, 2016 |

In Washington, drivers want this fuel, and it doesn’t cost an interested retailer an arm and a leg to get the right fueling equipment to sell higher blends of ethanol. That was the theme of ACE’s Congressional Briefing held in the Senate’s Russell Office Building on ThursdayParticipants in the hour long briefing were, ACE Senior Vice President Ron Lamberty, Pearson Fuels CEO Mike Lewis and Midway Service Owner Bruce Vollan.

Lamberty said the briefing, combined with ACE’s fly-in where ethanol advocates met with over 100 offices of both senators and representatives this week, knocked down a few of the biggest scare stories surrounding the sale of higher blends like E15.

“For years, we’ve been battling against an avalanche of misinformation about ethanol, the RFS, and E15, and yet there seem to be some lawmakers who have just given into this “cartoon villain” version of ethanol and are opposed for reasons that don’t exist. Among the most frequent objections we hear are station owners don’t want to sell higher blends of ethanol, customers won’t buy them, and those factors create a mythical “blend wall” that makes it impossible to get beyond ten percent as required by the RFS. The best way to bust all of those myths is to introduce policymakers to people like Bruce and Mike whose real-world stories prove the naysayers are wrong, and higher ethanol blends are creating tremendous opportunities for station owners,” said Lamberty.

“Bruce has seen ethanol blends help his store grow from a tiny gas station into a multipurpose convenience and auto repair stop. And Bruce points out that his repair shop, has never had customers report any damage from using higher ethanol blends,  Mike is a supplier of multiple locations like Bruce’s, offering E15 and E85 to drivers in the Pacific Coast. The Pearson Fuels model helps retailers buy competitively priced E85 and E15, which drives sales and customer counts, and in many cases, keeps the station competitive in the marketplace. Most importantly, both speakers will show they’ve already blown well past any mythical blend wall.” said Lamberty.

Category: Policy

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