OPINION:
With the average price of gasoline above $4 a gallon in the U.S., families are looking for relief wherever they can find it. One of the few places they have is on the pump handle marked “E15” or “Unleaded 88” — gasoline blended with 15% American-made ethanol.
E15 is saving drivers anywhere from 10 cents to 40 cents a gallon. That’s worth keeping in mind while reading the recent Washington Times editorial, “To lower gas prices, suspend the ethanol mandate” (Web. Aug. 5), which held that the fastest way to lower gas prices is to suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
Doing this would strip the cheapest ingredient out of America’s fuel supply at the precise moment drivers need it most. The editorial repeats a debunked claim: that ethanol adds about 45 cents to the price of every gallon.
But a recent analysis shows that blending ethanol lowers wholesale gasoline costs by roughly 39 cents a gallon, saving American drivers more than $50 billion a year. A team of economists at UC Berkeley put the discount even higher, at 77 cents a gallon.
Ethanol is the world’s cheapest octane, which is why many refiners already blend more than required.
Consider the refiners who are attacking the RFS the most vociferously. They are having an extraordinary year: second-quarter profits at some companies tripled or quadrupled, and several swung from outright losses to record earnings. One refiner CEO remarked that the effect of global oil disruption on his industry has been “both dramatic and constructive.”
The drivers paying more than $4 a gallon are not finding it constructive. No one begrudges a profitable quarter, but these results are hard to square with the argument that renewable fuel requirements are an unbearable burden.
Voters see this clearly. In a June Morning Consult survey, three in four registered voters said they want E15 more widely available, and only 11% were opposed.
The House has already passed year-round E15 and President Trump has pledged to sign it “without delay.”
Suspending the RFS would remove one of the few tools lowering fuel costs, and would deepen our dependence on the very barrels driving prices up.
If Congress wants to deliver relief this month, it should pass year-round E15.
GEOFF COOPER
President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association
St. Louis, Missouri
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