E15 and the Farm Bill:  A Gettysburg and Vicksburg Story

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May 12, 2026

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... Because this week on Capitol Hill, rural energy advocates found themselves fighting on two fronts at once: the loud, highly visible struggle over year-round E15, and the slower, grinding campaign to move a long-stalled Farm Bill through Congress after years of delay, stalemate, and political trench warfare. One fight was about holding the line. The other was about controlling the river.

And like most Washington campaigns, neither side consists of cartoon villains twirling mustaches beneath the Capitol dome. Oil-state lawmakers, representing refiners already squeezed by compliance costs and narrowing margins, were never likely to stand quietly by while E15 advanced toward year-round permanence. One suspects many of them felt rather like Pickett’s men stepping out from the tree line at Gettysburg: perhaps doubtful of success, but not especially free to decline the assignment.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Farm Bill have spent the better part of four years in something resembling Grant’s Vicksburg campaign — repeated failures, procedural dead ends, changing strategies, uneasy coalitions, and the persistent belief that somehow, eventually, the river had to be opened.

Now, at last, both battles appear to be reaching decisive phases at the same moment.

The House narrowly passed the “Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026” by a 224-200 vote, the farthest a Farm Bill has advanced since the 2018 legislation. Yet even that fragile victory nearly collapsed amid a fierce internal fight over year-round E15 authorization. For rural energy advocates, the stakes extend far beyond ethanol blends alone.

The Farm Bill’s Energy and Rural Development titles quietly shape much of the physical architecture of the American bioeconomy. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) enters more firmly into the definition of advanced biofuels, while the bill directs the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a department-wide SAF strategy. Biorefinery assistance programs receive renewed backing. The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) expands into waste-energy recovery. Federal biobased procurement standards move toward modernization, while national labeling terminology for plant-based and biobased products edges closer to uniformity.

None of these provisions arrive with the dramatic flourish of a floor fight over summer gasoline blends. But then Vicksburg never possessed the romance of Gettysburg either, despite controlling the Mississippi and ultimately splitting the Confederacy in two. The E15 battle, by contrast, has all the noise and smoke one expects from close-range political combat.

Beneath the rhetoric lies the long-running problem refiners call the “blend wall.” Americans consume less gasoline per capita than they once did, while federal Renewable Fuel Standard quotas continue pushing larger volumes of ethanol into the fuel pool. To comply, refiners either blend more biofuels or purchase compliance credits, costs critics estimate now approach $20 billion annually across the system. Large integrated refiners can often absorb the burden more easily. Smaller operators, especially in parts of the Midwest and Rust Belt, argue the mandates hit them with the force of artillery fire directed at already thin margins.

Most gasoline sold in the United States already contains roughly 10 percent ethanol. E15 raises the blend to 15 percent, and supporters have long sought year-round authorization rather than seasonal waivers and regulatory uncertainty. Refiners and oil-state lawmakers counter that compliance burdens, infrastructure constraints, and fuel-market distortions continue to impose heavy costs, especially on smaller operators already working with thin margins.

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Refiners see compliance burdens. Corn growers see market survival. Environmental groups see emissions tradeoffs. Lawmakers see regional economies and voting blocs. Editorial writers see market distortions and political horse-trading. But pull back far enough and the fight begins to look less like a dispute over fuel chemistry than a larger struggle over resilience, supply chains, strategic flexibility, and who absorbs the costs of transition.

Some of those costs appear in refinery balance sheets and farm ledgers. Others arrive more quietly, a few cents at a time at the fuel pump or another season of uncertainty for growers trying to decide what to plant into unstable export markets.

There is, underneath the E15 debate, a curious “gasoline is” problem. Americans still talk about gasoline as though it were a singular and settled thing, the way people once said “the United States are.” But modern gasoline is already a negotiated blend of molecules, oxygenates, octane strategies, refinery economics, seasonal formulations, geopolitical assumptions, and regulatory compromises.

Pull back even farther and the argument stops being about one fuel versus another entirely. It becomes an argument about what kind of energy system the country believes it is actually operating.

That question has only grown sharper in recent weeks. The Strait of Hormuz crisis has quietly altered the geometry of the discussion. Not long ago, much of the American energy conversation rested on assumptions of durable abundance and permanently cheap domestic supply. But chokepoints have a way of reminding markets that volume and resilience are not the same thing. Logistics still matter. Shipping lanes still matter. Flexibility still matters.

Congress, much like Civil War generals, often discovers that the map and the terrain are two different things entirely. That reality shaped this week’s procedural warfare in the House. Republican leadership initially attempted to attach year-round E15 authorization directly to the Farm Bill, only to trigger an immediate rebellion from oil-state lawmakers. Leadership ultimately struck a compromise: decouple the measures, hold a separate standalone E15 vote on May 13, and in the meantime effectively lash the wagons together by delaying transmission of the Farm Bill to the Senate until the E15 vote occurs.

Classic Washington horse-trading, certainly. But also evidence of something deeper: a recognition that these fights, once treated as separate regional disputes, increasingly belong to the same interconnected system. READ MORE

Related articles

Stop the myths — allow year-round E15 (Renewable Fuels Association/The Hill)
House expected to vote on nationwide E15 sales bill this week (Brownfield Ag News)
Congress nears key vote on permanent year-round E15 access (Brownfield Ag News)
Ag Policy Blog: CEOs Heading to China With Trump; E15 Bill on Deck in House (DTN Progressive Farmer)
Discussion Document – Effect of Ethanol Blending on Gasoline RVP (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Excerpt from Renewable Fuels Association/The Hill: The House will soon vote on a bill allowing nationwide, year-round sales of E15, a lower-cost gasoline blend containing 15 percent American-made ethanol. The bill also makes targeted reforms (supported by 80 percent of the oil industry) to the Renewable Fuel Standard to ensure refiners are able to compete on a level playing field when it comes to renewable fuel blending obligations.

Unfortunately, ahead of this crucial vote, anti-ethanol rhetoric and misinformation have reached a fever pitch. And it’s all coming from a small group of mid-sized oil refiners who have exploited loopholes in the existing RFS program to avoid blending biofuels. In recent days, certain members of Congress and front groups for those Fortune 500 refiners have ramped up their inflammatory and erroneous attacks on E15, ethanol and America’s farmers. It’s time to set the record straight.

When you pull into any retail gas station offering E15 today, your own eyes will see that the fuel is the lowest-cost option available. E15 typically sells for 15 to 40 cents per gallon less than standard E10 gasoline; often, the savings are even greater.

The average E15 price (as reported by real people at real gas stations) in recent weeks has been 42 cents per gallon less than E10 prices at those same stations. That’s a savings of over 10 percent. And when compared to prices for E0 or ethanol-free gasoline, E15 is typically priced at a discount of $1 per gallon or more.

E15 opponents expect you to somehow believe that voluntary E15 expansion mysteriously translates to higher pump prices. It’s common sense: Ethanol costs less than gasoline — a lot less — at wholesale terminals where fuels are blended. Adding more low-cost ethanol will result in a lower price for the finished fuel. In fact, a fuel blender in the Chicago market could buy a gallon of ethanol that comes with a Renewable Fuel Standard compliance credit for just $2 last week, compared to $3.60 per gallon for gasoline blendstock.

Some have demanded reforms to the RFS in exchange for giving consumers across the country the choice to purchase E15 year-round. That’s why the measure being voted on this week includes modifications to small refinery exemptions under the RFS. These sensible changes modify the requirements for which entities qualify for an exemption, ensuring that mid-sized refiners can’t continue to exploit a loophole that has undermined the RFS for years.

These carefully tailored provisions are a key reason that members on both sides of the aisle, farm organizations, fuel retailers, consumer advocates, and an overwhelming swath of the petroleum industry have lined up to support this critical legislation.

However, when the economic and policy arguments are debunked, opponents turn to the other well-worn myths. These arguments don’t hold up against the science.

Anti-ethanol groups allege that E15 is a raw deal for vehicle fuel economy. But actual testing of 20 late-model vehicles by the University of California, Riverside, shows that the difference in miles per gallon is negligible. On average, the vehicles tested saw a 1 percent fuel economy reduction when using E15 instead of E10. That means a car getting 29 miles per gallon on E10 would be expected to get 28.7 miles per gallon on E15. And when E15 is priced 8 to 10 percent lower than E10 at the pump, drivers choosing E15 enjoy a much lower cost per mile traveled than drivers choosing E10 — and that’s what really matters.

Given all the recent attention to E15, one would be forgiven for thinking that it is somehow a new fuel. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency approved E15 as a legal fuel in 2011 and it is available at nearly 5,000 locations across 36 states. E15 is legally approved for use in 95 percent of the vehicles on the road today. The main barrier to growth has been the arbitrary federal restriction, which prevents E15 from being sold during the summer months, that Congress is voting to remove this week.

Congress should not let the opposition by a handful of Fortune 500 refining companies stand in the way of lower prices at the pump — especially now as gas prices soar. Congress has the opportunity to deliver real savings for American families by passing the bipartisan Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, and finally giving drivers the ability to use lower-cost E15 all year long. READ MORE

Excerpt from DTN Progressive Farmer: E15 VOTE EXPECTED IN HOUSE

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., has listed the bill to legalize the sale of E15 fuel nationwide and year round for a vote this week (week of May 11, 2026).

Scalise did not announce a day for the vote, but there have been reports it will be Wednesday.

The bill, H.R. 1346, is titled the "Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025." It is sponsored by Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb.

Smith and Reps. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., and Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., and National Corn Growers Association President Jed Bower, an Ohio farmer, have scheduled a news conference today (May 12, 2026) to promote the bill.

Representatives from the American Farm Bureau Federation, Growth Energy, the National Farmers Union, and the Renewable Fuels Association will also be available to answer reporters' questions.

The National Farmers Union sent its members an action alert on Monday telling them to urge Congress to vote for the bill.

Still, the bill is drawing pushback from high places. The Wall Street Journal's editorial on Monday suggested farm-state lawmakers and ethanol supporters, "threatened to hold the farm bill hostage" over E15. The WSJ suggested higher ethanol blends "can increase smog in warm weather, which is why EPA restricts its sale during the summer." The editorial also suggested higher ethanol blends "can corrode gasoline pumps, storage tanks and other infrastructure unless retailers and distributors make upgrades." The editorial stated the legislation would hurt small refiners as well.

"There may be a compromise in permitting year-round E15 in areas with low smog, in return for repealing the ethanol mandate. But the ethanol lobby wants to have it every which way, and it's taking advantage of election-year politics and sympathy in Congress for soybean and corn farmers hurt by tariffs," the WSJ wrote.

House leadership promised Midwestern Republicans a vote on E15 in order to get their votes for passage of the farm bill. Small and medium-sized refiners have objected to the content of H.R. 1346 and there have been rumors of changes to the bill.

House Democrats have called for a vote on E15 but a House Democratic aide said whether Democrats vote for it "really depends on the bill itself" and that there were "rumors over the weekend that the majority was watering it down to further appease refiners." READ MORE

Excerpt from National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Blending of ethanol into gasoline at 10 volume percent causes the RVP to increase by about 1 psi despite the fact that fuel grade ethanol has a lower vapor pressure than gasoline (see Figure 1).

The low vapor pressure of fuel grade ethanol is caused by attractive forces between the ethanol molecules. The strongly electronegative oxygen atom in each ethanol molecule is attracted to the somewhat positive hydrogen atoms in other ethanol molecules.

The attraction between ethanol molecules means that it has a stronger tendency to stay as a liquid and not vaporize into the more dispersed gaseous state. However, when blended into gasoline at relatively low concentrations the more numerous gasoline molecules disrupt the attractive forces between ethanol molecules and allow the ethanol to readily evaporate, raising the vapor pressure of the blend. Not surprisingly this increase in vapor pressure with ethanol is more marked with the lower RVP hydrocarbon blendstocks. This would be true with the addition of any component which raises vapor pressure, as the final pressure is a weighted average of the pressure contributions of all of the components.

As ethanol content is increased above about 20% the vapor pressure increase becomes less, and above about 50% ethanol vapor pressure for the blend is less than that of the gasoline.

Figure 1. Effect of ethanol blending on vapor pressure of gasoline.

When ethanol was first permitted as an additive in gasoline at concentrations of up to 10% in 1979, its effect on vapor pressure was not regulated.3 In 1992, new EPA regulations (40 CFR 80.27) provided a 1-psi waiver for ethanol blends that contained between 9 and 10 percent ethanol. Most, but not all, of the state-set RVP standards also allow a 1-psi waiver for blends of 9 to 10 percent ethanol.4,5 The purpose of the 1-psi waiver was to support the emerging ethanol industry. At that time EPA believed it would be difficult to economically justify a separate storage and distribution system for the small amount of lower vapor pressure gasoline needed for ethanol blending, with the result that low RVP gasoline blendstock for ethanol blending would not be made available. 6 The waiver allowed E10 to be made with the same gasoline distributed as finished fuel to be used without ethanol addition. Allowing vapor pressure to increase also lets refiners keep volatile components in the gasoline. This is estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to provide a 2 to 3% increase in conventional gasoline volume.7 READ MORE