What Blend Wall? Why Facts Trump Rhetoric Every Time

by Bob Dinneen (Renewable Fuels Association) Half of U.S. states blended more than 10 percent ethanol, RFA's president and CEO points out in his View from the Hill column -- Reps. Bill Flores, R-Texas, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., introduced legislation during the last Congress that would cap ethanol blends in the U.S. transportation pool to no more than 9.7 percent by volume and have vowed to reintroduce the measure in the new Congress. But the bill represents a solution in search of a problem. Here’s why.

Oil companies argue that blending above 9.7 percent will hurt consumers, damage engines and increase cost. Really? Recent data from the U.S. Department of Energy—and analyzed by the Renewable Fuels Association—shows that fuel supplies in 25 states and the District of Columbia in 2015 already contain more than 10 percent ethanol. The national average ethanol blend rate was 9.91 percent, according to the latest available data published by DOE’s Energy Information Administration.

In Minnesota, for example, ethanol comprised 12.5 percent of the gasoline pool in 2015. Not coincidentally, ethanol flex fuels such as E85 are available at roughly one out of every eight stations in the Gopher State. In Iowa, gasoline contained an average of 11.5 percent ethanol in 2015, up from 10.3 percent in 2014 and just 9.5 percent in 2013.

Ethanol also exceeded 10 percent of gasoline consumption in 2015 in coastal states like California, Oregon, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and even Louisiana. For the first time, not a single state had average ethanol content below 9 percent in 2015, the data showed. Vermont ranked last in average ethanol concentration at 9.18 percent.

In 2014, the national average ethanol content was 9.83 percent and 22 states (plus the District of Columbia) were above 10 percent, on average. READ MORE