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Van Orden urges EPA Administrator to approve E15 now

A Wisconsin Congressman told the EPA Administrator that his agency’s delays in approving E15 fuel for this summer is unacceptable and a “shuffle” that is hurting farmers and consumers.

Congressman Derrick Van Orden told EPA Administrator Michael Regan during a House Ag Committee hearing the eight states seeking a waiver of the Reid Vapor Pressure guidelines should not have to wait any longer to use E15. “Your agency’s inability to do your job in a timely manner does not constitute an emergency. It constitutes a crisis for our farmers and other consumers.”

Van Orden says the conditions now are the same or worse than a year ago when Regan granted the previous emergency waiver for E15 summertime use. “Use the empiric knowledge that you gathered to get this waiver to use E15 year round, use the same information because it hasn’t changed, so that we can use E15 this year.”

Regan told the committee EPA is required to do air quality modeling before issuing any waiver, and says a waiver now would likely be thrown out in court.

Governors in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin filed for a 2023 year-round E15 waiver last year, and the agency did not act within the required time limit. 

A proposed EPA rule was published in the Federal Register on March 6th that would allow the states to sell E15 in 2024, but not this year. The public comment period for the proposed rule closed Thursday, April 20^th.