Resistance grows to increasing ethanol mandate

Fuel Fix:

A group of oil-state senators including Texas's Ted Cruz and John Cornyn met with President Donald Trump Thursday to argue against increasing the volume of ethanol U.S. refineries are required to blend into the fuel supply.

Following the meeting, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., tweeted, "the president is very engaged on the issue, and feels as if we can work towards a solution which protects jobs."

Trump has been working to increase ethanol demand, a valuable market for Midwestern corn farmers that are expected to be a key voting block in the 2020 presidential election.

But refining companies have been pushing back, arguing their facilities are being put at risk.

"Increases in biofuel mandates are likely to come from imported fuel and could increase the price at the pump," a group of 60 refinery managers representing companies including Phillips 66 and Valero wrote to Trump this week. "Regulatory costs would increase and second, the fuels our own refineries produce would be further displaced by biofuels produced in other countries."

Even as Trump has allowed the year round-sale of E15, a fuel with a higher concentration of ethanol than standard gasoline blends, he has been taking criticism from farmers and Midwestern politicians over the Environmental Protection Agency's granting of waivers from the ethanol mandate to smaller refineries.
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The ethanol mandate should be eliminated.  If there is a market for this product it should not need a mandate.  If I could find ethanol-free gas I would buy it especially for yard tools which are harmed by the ethanol in gas.  The mandate is slowing the ability to switch production at refineries to the light crude coming from shale wells and therefore leading to the need to import heavy crude.  If they switched to light crude it would haten the time when the US would not need to import any oil.  Now, ethanol has the opposite result of its stated intentions when the mandate was first required.