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ACE CEO says there’s no easy path to year-round E15
The CEO of the American Coalition for Ethanol suggests there’s no easy path to year-round E15.
Brian Jennings tells Brownfield he’s unsure whether E15 will be available during summers to come after a D.C. Circuit Court vacated a 2019 regulation allowing fuel blended with 15 percent ethanol to be sold between June 1st and September 15th.
“We have tools at our disposal, we have paths that we could follow. But each and every one of them has plenty of sort of resistance that we would face.”
He says on the legal path, the Renewable Fuels and National Corn Growers Associations recently filed a petition for a rehearing with the D.C. Circuit Court.
On the Congressional path, bipartisan legislation paving the way for year-round sales of E15 has been introduced. Jennings calls this “the most elegant and probably best” fix.
“But our legislation, people need to understand, would face some substantial opposition standing on its own.”
He says an E15 bill would need to be attached to broader legislation.
The final path, according to Jennings, would be regulatory with the Biden EPA proposing a new regulation.
“That’s time consuming. My estimation is from proposal to final rule it would take two to three years. The Trump EPA moved very expeditiously and it (still) took a year and-a-half.”
He says a proposed rule would be subject to comment periods and delays, a change in administration, and more legal challenges by oil refiners.
Brownfield interviewed Jennings Thursday at the ACE Ethanol Conference in Minneapolis.
