POET Urges Biden Climate Team to Grasp E15 Philosophy

(Biofuels International) POET has urged the new Biden administration to embrace E15.
The world’s largest biofuels producer, based in Sioux Falls in South Dakota, has also welcomed the new President’s leadership in making climate a top priority.

Rob Walther, vice president of Federal Advocacy at POET, said each member of the Biden climate team will play a key role in helping the administration make good on its commitment to fight for family farms, end environmental injustice and shift the nation to net-zero emissions.

He said: “In the short window we have to halt climate change, renewable biofuels can help the Biden Administration achieve immediate and substantial GHG reductions while other technologies are gradually deployed over time.”

He added that E15 can play an immediate role in lowering emissions from vehicles already on the road.

A new paper detailed seven policies that could be enacted by the Biden administration within the first 100 days, by encouraging the use of E15 - an accessible and affordable fuel that can reduce emissions in 245 million cars, trucks and SUVs.

The emissions reductions from shifting to E15 nationwide are equivalent to removing 3.8 million vehicles from the road each year, he concluded. READ MORE

Excerpt from POET: Policy Recommendations for The First 100 Days Of The New Administration

■ Strictly enforce the RFS and apply the U.S. 10th Circuit small refinery waiver decision nationwide
■ Set volumetric targets according to the clear intent of Congress – to increase biofuels in the fuel supply
■ Remove or improve retail fuel labeling requirements for E15 causing unnecessary confusion at the pump
■ Update EPA’s flawed modeling with accurate science reflecting biofuels’ GHG and air quality benefits
■ Undertake a Mobile Source Air Toxics rulemaking to reduce harmful constituents of gasoline and related health risks
■ Reinstate incentives for Flex Fuel Vehicles in federal fuel efficiency standards
■ Incentivize safer fuel infrastructure for cleaner fuels like E15 through existing USDA programs and funding authority

Beyond harming the environment, tailpipe emissions also pose serious health risks—particularly among people living in “fenceline communities” located near refineries, highways and transportation hubs and made up largely of people of color.2 Harmful fuel additives like BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes) still make up 20% of gasoline by volume, and the ultrafine particles released when BTEX is burned are toxic even at low levels, especially to children.3

A recent Harvard study4 also found that COVID-19 patients in areas with high levels of air pollution before the pandemic are more likely to die from the virus than patients living in areas with less air pollution from vehicles.

The answer to all these problems is to end Big Oil’s monopoly on America’s gas tank.

Over the long-term, that means shifting all vehicles and related infrastructure completely off petroleum. That evolution depends on widespread adoption of zero and near-zero emission electric vehicles (EVs), including battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicles. To realize the full zero carbon potential of EVs, the U.S. must invest in 100% renewable power generation and develop a nationwide electric transmission “supergrid”7
and EV charging network.

While a zero-carbon future is ideal, it’s also a long way off. Sales of EVs in particular are slowing8 at a time when the world’s demand for oil is not predicted to peak for two more decades.9

Even after every car sold is zero-emission, it will still be a decade before 70% of vehicles on the road are electric and 15 years before that number reaches 90%.10 Because the energy used to produce batteries and power electric vehicles comes from a variety of sources, including coal and fossil fuels, driving an electric vehicle in some regions of the country can actually generate higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than driving a vehicle powered by a cleaner renewable fuel blend, like E15.

That’s why the immediate solution is to give every American access to renewable, low-carbon fuel that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and cut GHG emissions from the almost 257 million gas-powered light duty vehicles on the road today.11

Biofuels, and E15 in particular, have been proven to work. Thanks to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires increases in the volume of renewable fuels consumed, almost all gasoline in the U.S. now contains approximately 10% ethanol.12 The result has been cleaner air and a healthier environment. Over the first ten years of the RFS, biofuels including E10 (a fuel blend consisting of 10% ethanol) cut transportation-related emissions in the U.S. by almost 590 million metric tons—the equivalent of removing more than 124 million cars from the road.13 If the
U.S. transitioned from E10 to E15, it would be the equivalent of removing an additional 3.85 million vehicles from U.S. roads each year.14

Biofuels are also making a difference at the state level. California and Oregon, which have led the country in pushing low-carbon transportation policies, have both relied heavily on biofuels to reduce GHG emissions.15 While EVs are a growing part of the states’ clean fuel programs, without biofuels generating carbon credits (tradeable certificates that represent the avoidance or removal of one ton of carbon dioxide emissions) the program would have resulted in drastic swings in energy prices and possibly failed.

E15 will do even more. The higher percentage of renewable fuel means it can reduce harmful emissions even more than traditional E10. Any car manufactured in 2001 or later—more than 95% of vehicles on the road today16—can use it. And consumers have already driven 17 billion miles on E15—two miles for every person on Earth.17

1 https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
2 https://www.stateoftheair.org/key-findings/people-at-risk.html
3 EESI “Guide to Gasoline Aromatics”
4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277007/
5 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6
6 https://ethanolrfa.org/energy-independence/

7 https://climatecrisis.house.gov/sites/climatecrisis.house.gov/files/Climate%20Crisis%20Action%20Plan.pdf (pg. 51)
8 https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/mckinsey-electric-vehicle-index-europe-cushions-a-global-plunge-in-ev-sales
9 https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-oil-demand-wont-peak-before-2040-opec-says-11602158400
10 https://climatecrisis.house.gov/sites/climatecrisis.house.gov/files/Climate%20Crisis%20Action%20Plan.pdf (pg. 101)
11 Growth Energy 10/15/20
12 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26092