News

RFA ready to welcome E15 for this summer

The Renewable Fuels Association presumes there will be reason to celebrate the start of the summer driving season Saturday.

RFA CEO Geoff Cooper tells Brownfield he continues to hear that EPA will have the E15 rule finalized by June 1st.

“So that really means by end of business Friday we would expect to see an announcement that EPA has finalized the year-round E15 rule.”

Cooper expects the oil industry to sue EPA, but he says there’s very little risk of legal action slowing implementation once the final rule is published.

Cooper is also confident the RIN reform portion of the rule will be pared down or even removed because of negative feedback during the public comment period.

“There is a chance they may finalize some measures aimed at more transparency, and maybe a few small or minor tweaks to the RIN market operation. But we are not expecting anything substantial.”

Cooper says the new rule would instantly provide incremental growth to the ethanol industry, but more importantly it opens the door to nationwide sales of E15.