Continuing Resolution Left E15 Fuel Advocates Empty Handed

WASHINGTON — Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, is calling it “a real head-scratcher.”

A week ago Tuesday, a long-sought-after piece of legislation allowing for the year-round sale of lower-cost, cleaner-burning E15 fuel was part of the stopgap funding bill released by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

“We are very pleased to see that the long-awaited fix allowing year-round E15 is included in this package,” Cooper said 11 days ago.

By Friday, however, after Congressional Republicans had walked away from Tuesday’s bicameral, bipartisan deal on the spending measure, the E15 provision was gone — this despite the fact it added not a single dollar in cost to the continuing resolution.

E15, for those who don’t know, is gasoline refined with 85% unleaded gas and 15% ethanol.

For years the Environmental Protection Agency has banned its sale from June to September under the Clean Air Act because it evaporates more quickly than other fuels, raising air pollution concerns.

But advocates for the fuel blend have long contended that the EPA’s concerns are “outdated” and now represent little more than an unneeded regulatory barrier that is doing more harm than good.

“Allowing year-round sales of E15 will benefit farmers, fuel retailers, and — most importantly — consumers seeking lower-cost, cleaner fuel options at the pump,” Cooper has said.

Speaking with RFD-TV news anchor Tammi Arender on Tuesday, Cooper admitted to being flabbergasted by the provision’s 11th-hour omission from the spending measure.

“We were extremely disappointed that Congress managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, once again, when it comes to E15,” he said.

“We were so close,” Cooper continued. “On Tuesday, everything was looking good. We were feeling good about our chances.

“But between Tuesday afternoon and Friday night, that provision got stripped out of the package and was left on the cutting room floor and did not end up in the final bill that went to the president for his signature,” he said.

“So it’s extremely frustrating … and the real irony is, the E15 provision had no price tag associated with it, it had no impact on the continuing resolution and no impact on the taxpayer whatsoever,” he added.

Asked what happened, Cooper said the E15 provision fell victim to a “bizarre turn of events” set in motion by “certain people who have a large amount of influence on the Republican people.”

These people, he said without naming names but presumably referring to Elon Musk, among others, “started throwing a temper tantrum on social media on Wednesday about the size and cost of the continuing resolution. Then, later on Wednesday, you had President-elect Trump weighing in, encouraging members of Congress to reject the bill.

“So, Republicans got out the hatchet and they cut just about everything — all of the extras and riders — out of the bill,” Cooper continued. “They skinnied it down to just a few provisions and extended the funding of the federal government into March.

“Now, fortunately, one of the provisions that survived was assistance to farmers; sadly E15 didn’t,” he said.

Cooper told Arender that if there’s a silver lining to what happened it’s that “it put a lot of members of Congress on record with their support for year-round E-15 sales.

“We had Democratic members from the Northeast, for instance, saying, ‘Yeah, this is something we need to get done.’ We had Republican members from the Deep South saying, ‘Yes, get it done.’ Those are folks we haven’t always had good luck with,” he said.

“So adding those voices of support to our chorus of supporters from the Midwest, we think, bodes well for us in a new Congress,” Cooper said. 

“Hopefully this support will be enough to get this thing over the goal line when Congress starts working on budget reconciliation and a real farm bill and some other measures early in the next Congress,” he said.

“So we’ll pick up the pieces and we’ll be ready to get to work in the new Congress in 2025

and hopefully get this passed early in the year,” Cooper said. 

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