The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week announced it will approve the use of E15 gasoline nationwide this summer.
“This is consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order Declaring a National Energy Emergency, directing the EPA to consider issuing emergency waivers to allow for year-round E15 sales,” the EPA said in a press release.
EPA in recent years has granted the summertime E15 waiver, which allows a blend of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline to be sold between June 1 and September 15. In some years, EPA has issued an emergency waiver in response to state requests, while in other years the Agency has conducted formal rulemaking to apply the 1-psi Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) waiver that typically applies to only E10 in the summer months so that it would apply to E15 as well. The RVP waiver allowed the more evaporative E15 fuel blend to be used during the summer. In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2021 struck down the RVP waiver in a 3-0 decision. The court said that Congress did not intend for the law the EPA used to apply to blends higher than E10, thus the waiver had no grounds in statute.
Sales of E15 during the summer months is banned under the Renewable Fuel Standard, the underlying statute that established the U.S. ethanol industry, due to concerns about impacts on air quality due to fuel volatility by burning that particular fuel blend during hotter weather.
