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Growth Energy highlights importance of year-round E15 anniversary

Sunday marked the first anniversary of the EPA’s final rule allowing year-round E15.

Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor says the rule allowing year-round E15 is the culmination of about a decade-long campaign.

“Growth Energy filed the first waiver petition back in 2009 to get that going and it’s an exciting milestone because not only is it good for rural development and encourages more use of ethanol, it’s cleaner-burning, and you typically save 5 to 10 cents per gallon even in today’s economic environment,” she says. 

She says the milestone is especially important as the biofuel industry has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“With COVID-19 you saw national fuel demand drop 50 percent and it’s really important we start to get that demand back,” she says. “One third of our fuel demand every year comes from recreational driving. We’ve seen some survey results that more consumers are saying they are going to hit the road so that’s a good thing in terms of getting fuel demand back and recovering that momentum.”

She says Growth Energy is building on that success by helping retailers secure grant funding from the USDA to install new infrastructure to be able to offer higher biofuel blends at the pump.

Audio: Emily Skor