ACE’s grassroots advocacy is focused on expanding ethanol use. As we close the year, let’s take inventory of these efforts.During last year’s record high pump prices, E15 saved drivers an average of 15 cents per gallon compared to regular. Attractive blending economics remain today, and we are grateful EPA issued temporary waivers this summer to capitalize on E15’s ability to reduce prices. Nevertheless, we cannot continue to rely on emergency steps to secure E15 market access. That’s why Midwest governors petitioned EPA to remove the outdated RVP roadblock to year-round E15, while employing the Clean Air Act to document how E15 cuts emissions during the summer.The Clean Air Act requires a response by EPA within 90 days, but the agency didn’t get around to proposing to remove the RVP roadblock until this spring. This foot-dragging prompted the attorneys general of two of the petitioning states—Iowa and Nebraska—to file a lawsuit compelling the agency to act before the 2024 summer driving season.Our ultimate goal is permanent, nationwide E15 availability. Bipartisan bills are making progress in Congress and ACE is working to identify ways to get a bill over the finish line this year.If EPA follows the law, the RFS can be a powerful tool for increasing ethanol demand. Having worked in the U.S. Senate as the RFS was developed, I argue EPA continues to misunderstand the importance of the program. The RFS was enacted because Congress knew refiners would not voluntarily supply the market with low-cost, low-carbon renewable fuels to displace the petroleum products they make. Congress intended for the RFS to be transformational, to disrupt the status-quo grip refiners had on the marketplace and provide consumer access to cleaner and lower-cost fuels.EPA had an opportunity to use this new phase of the program to unleash the RFS to be transformational, but the agency’s final rule reduced volume obligations for 2024 and 2025, and set underwhelming totals for biomass-based diesel, steps which not only slow progress toward the Administration’s climate goals, but also enable excess biodiesel production to spill into the D6 RIN pool of the RFS, and potentially displace physical blending of E15 and E85.We must remain a vigilant watchdog over EPA implementation of the RFS, but we must do much more, beyond the RFS, to increase ethanol demand well into the future.Many ACE members have taken significant strides to reduce energy use, produce cellulosic gallons, or invest in technologies to capture and permanently sequester CO2. The common thread for this investment activity is appreciation for the fact that everything counts, from how the bushels of corn are produced, to the Btus powering your facility: counting carbon is the name of the game.To prove that both ethanol production and farming are part of the climate solution, we need to lean into the clean, low carbon benefits of both. We are helping farmers adopt practices such as conservation tillage, 4R nutrient management and cover crops to reduce the carbon intensity of their corn. We have created calculators (visit ethanol.org) to do the math on what technology investments and climate-smart farming practices are worth. And we’re collaborating with scientists to properly monitor and measure the GHG benefits resulting from climate-smart ag practices.&nbsp;The value of all this activity? Market and policy support for the low carbon benefits you deliver every day—and premiums paid for cleaner gallons of ethanol sold in the future.Author: Brian Jennings&nbsp; CEO&nbsp; American Coalition for Ethanol&nbsp; 605.334.3381&nbsp; bjennings@ethanol.org&nbsp;

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The American Coalition for Ethanol’s grassroots advocacy is focused on expanding ethanol use. As 2023 comes to an end, the group organization takes inventory of its efforts. 

Taking Inventory of Advocacy

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