EPA issues fourth emergency waiver for E15 to July 20

In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued a fourth emergency waiver extension for E15 to July 20. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a letter, “The Agency in taking this action is seeking to address the extreme and unusual fuel supply circumstances in the market by allowing the continued sale of E15 during the summer driving season. Absent this action, retailers that currently sell E15 (gasoline with 85% petroleum gasoline content) would need to stop selling the fuel and instead only sell E10 (gasoline with 90% petroleum gasoline content). This switch, from E15 to E10, would increase the demand for petroleum-based gasoline at the very time that the Agency has concluded that a fuel supply issue persists due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Agency’s waiver action here will eliminate the need for retailers to shift to E10 and in the process will prevent the increased demand for petroleum gasoline that would otherwise occur.

“Since E15, allowed under this waiver, is required to meet the same volatility standard as E10, no overall change in evaporative emissions impacts are projected to occur as a result of this action. This is because it is the volatility of the gasoline blend that drives evaporative emissions, not the ethanol content. EPA has similarly found in comparing exhaust emissions between E10 and E15 that some criteria pollutants would have relatively small increases (NOx) and others have similar decreases (VOC and CO) while still others are less certain (PM). In the E15 CAA Section 211(f)(4) partial waivers, we determined that effects of this magnitude were too small to cause or contribute to model year 2001 and newer light duty motor vehicles to exceed the vehicles’ certified exhaust emissions standards.5 After weighing the societal benefits of an incrementally higher volume of gasoline being made available to the public, and considering that no significant change in air pollution is projected to occur as a result of this action, EPA concludes that this action is in the public interest.