Dinneen: API’s Request on RFS should be TKO’d

June 17, 2013 |

In Washington, Renewable Fuels Association CEO Bob Dinneen poured cold water on an attempt by the American Petroleum Institute’s to convince the Obama Administration to waive the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and end E15.

“It’s ironic that the industry that brought us MTBE, benzene, tar sands, fracking chemicals, Deepwater Horizon, Exxon Valdez, and other environmental disasters is suddenly concerned about ‘consumer safety’.

“API is simply misleading people in suggesting the RFS will increase gasoline costs. The opposite is true. Ethanol is less expensive than gasoline today. It lowers prices at the pump. That’s the fact.

“API is being irresponsible in suggesting ethanol harms vehicles. API points to the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) study on E15 that has been widely criticized by the Department of Energy and many others. Ten percent ethanol is safe and approved for all vehicles on the road today. E15 is safe for all vehicles for which EPA has approved its use, 2001 and newer.”

Dinneen proceeded to highlight flaws in the API’s data.

*The API-funded CRC study has been debunked and criticized by the Department of Energy and others. According to the CRC study, gasoline without ethanol should also be considered by API to be “unsafe,” as there were vehicles that failed the tests when operating on gasoline without ethanol.

*The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have determined that E15 is safe and effective for approximately 80 percent of the vehicles on the road today. Those approved vehicles account for about 87 percent of the miles traveled in the U.S., and EPA’s pump labeling requirements clearly inform consumers that E15 is not allowed in older vehicles, motorcycles, and off-road engines like lawnmowers, weed-eaters, and boats.

*The so-called blend wall is not some impenetrable market barricade—it is an artifact of oil companies’ refusal to embrace renewable fuels. All of this fuss is over 400-500 million gallons of additional ethanol blending required by the RFS in 2013—that’s 0.3 percent of the gasoline market. The E85 and blender pump infrastructure already exists to distribute the small amount of additional ethanol needed in 2013, and there are more than enough flex-fuel vehicles to consume it. E85 sales are skyrocketing in the Midwest today, with reports of E85 priced at $1 or more per gallon below regular E10.

More on the story.

Category: Policy

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