My Turn: EPA Effort to Increase Amount of Ethanol in Gas Misguided

Business News/Analysis, Deliver Dispense, Infrastructure, New Hampshire, Opinions, Policy

November 6, 2016

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by Lee Lajoie (Concord Monitor) Monday’s Monitor included a very interesting article on the cost of upgrading gasoline pumps to accept microchip-enabled credit cards. The article placed the average price of a new pump at approximately $17,000 and highlighted the hardship this imposes on station owners who are having to choose between accepting chargebacks for credit card fraud or spend a year’s profit to upgrade the pumps.

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The EPA’s proposed method of providing access to both E10 and E15 is to promote the use of “blender pumps,” which would be capable of dispensing both versions. Because of the financial hardship of replacing pumps to avoid chargebacks for credit card fraud, how many stations can reasonably be expected to change those pumps again? I believe most stations will simply switch to dispensing only E15 to avoid the cost of changing to blender pumps. I base this on the fact that although ethanol-free gas is still allowed to be sold, there are only 17 locations dispensing E0 in New Hampshire, according to pure-gas.org. Most stations have simply switched to E10 due to the cost and inconvenience of carrying both products.

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House Resolution 5180, the Food and Fuel Consumer Protection Act of 2016, was introduced in May of this year and would prohibit the introduction of E15 into the marketplace. READ MORE and MORE (Green Car Reports)

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