By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) partially granted and partially denied a request that would allow E15 gasoline to be used in vehicles.

Up until now the maximum ethanol/gasoline blend was E10, or 10 percent ethanol to 90 percent gasoline. In March 2009, Growth Energy, a coalition of ethanol advocates, applied for a waiver that would allow the use of E-15. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 calls for a large increase in the use of biofuel in the coming years.

According to the EPA, it received more than 78,000 public comments with respect to this request.

“First, we are approving the waiver for and allowing the introduction into commerce of E15 for use in model year (MY) 2007 and newer light-duty motor vehicles, which includes passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles,” an EPA statement reads.
According to Growth Energy, the waiver applies to more than 42 million vehicles – nearly 20 percent of the current fleet of passenger cars and light-duty trucks in the U.S.

But, “we are not approving the waiver for E15 use in MY2000 and older light-duty motor vehicles, heavy-duty highway engines and vehicles,” the EPA statement added – these include delivery trucks, highway and off-highway motorcycles and non-road engines, vehicles and equipment. For example, it can’t be used in boats, snowmobiles and lawnmowers. The EPA believes there isn’t enough data to support allowing it in these kinds of engines. It also said it’s deferring a decision on vehicles made from 2001-06; should it approve a waiver for those vehicles, Growth Energy said this means E15 would be allowed in more than half of cars and light duty trucks on the road today.

The reaction from at least some ethanol advocates has been decidedly negative. In a published radio interview last week, Renewable Fuels Assoc. (RFA) President Bob Dineen blasted the decision as a likely step backward and probably worse than a complete denial of the waiver request.

“We don’t believe that bifurcating the auto park in this fashion, limiting it to only newer vehicles, is going to have any kind of significant impact on the marketplace,” Dineen said.

He quoted the president of the Petroleum Marketers Assoc. as saying he doesn’t expect gas stations to use E15 because it would only be available for a small percentage of their consumers.
“What this does is create confusion, for consumers, for gasoline marketers and for our industry,” Dineen said. “You could understand it if there was some solid technical basis that older vehicles couldn’t be using these fuels, but that’s just not the case.”
He said the RFA has done testing on 2001-06 vehicles using the same engineering assessments the EPA is using. “We believe that you can go back as far as (19)94 or earlier without having any detrimental impacts whatsoever,” Dineen said.

“There’s not a shred of technical support for denying the availability of E15 to those older vehicles.”

With regard to the use of E15 in lawnmower engines and other small non-road engines, Dineen said the nation of Brazil allows an E25 blend and it hasn’t caused any problems; however, his group hasn’t been pushing this.

“We have not been promoting the use of E15 for those smaller engines,” he said.

Dineen said it’s a problem that EPA is planning to require warning labels at ethanol blend pumps so consumers won’t use E15 in their older vehicles, and that a warning label wouldn’t be necessary if the waiver weren’t restricted to only certain model years.

He also said there’s no indication the EPA is planning to approve another blend in between E10 and E15 for all vehicles. “I understand that with their ruling today they are effectively closing the door on that route,” he added.

The National Corn Growers Assoc. (NCGA) reacted to the situation last week in a way that wasn’t quite as negative.

“We’re disappointed in the very limited scope of this approval, but pleased the EPA has finally taken action to partially approve the waiver request to allow higher blends of ethanol in some motor vehicles,” said NCGA President Bart Schott.