Could E15 Biofuel Give Wisconsin Corn A Big Boost?
National shift to year-round 15% ethanol could help growers, but maybe not motorists.
Photo by TwoScarsUp, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The White House is pushing for Congress to approve a bill allowing the year-round sale of gasoline containing higher volumes of ethanol. Wisconsin politicians across the political spectrum have called for the expansion.
E15 biofuel, also known as Unleaded 88, is a gasoline blend that uses 15 percent ethanol as opposed to the 10 percent blend currently sold year-round. The higher-ethanol content fuel has been barred from sale from June through September due to pollution concerns. However, the Environmental Protection Agency under the second Trump administration issued a waiver in March allowing it to be sold through this summer.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s White House made its first formal push to make the year-round sale of E15 permanent.
A wide range of Wisconsin politicians have supported efforts to expand sales of the higher-ethanol blend. Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin are co-sponsors of two different versions of a bill to make year-round sale permanent. Gov. Tony Evers signed an open letter in 2022 calling for the EPA to sell E15 fuel year-round.
Scott Irwin is a professor and agricultural economist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a biofuel policy researcher. He told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that moving to a 15 percent ethanol blend nationwide would lead to a 50 percent increase in the demand for corn used to make ethanol.
“(That) would be jumping at least 2 to 2.5 billion bushels of increased corn demand … our crop is around 16 billion bushels,” Irwin said. “That would be very significant.”
Corn and biofuel advocates have argued that increasing the use of this higher-ethanol fuel blend will ultimately drive down the cost of gasoline at the pump. However, Irwin said that’s an area of significant debate.
“If we take a look at the fuel supply chain, (it is) divided into three parts: the upstream refining level, the midstream logistical and pipeline level, and at the downstream retail gasoline station level. There are significant costs to transition to E15 at each of those points in the supply chain,” Irwin said. “It’s debatable whether in the end it would save drivers a lot of money once we absorb all those costs.”
The House version of the bill to make year-round E15 sales permanent passed after months of debate. Irwin said the bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate over one small provision: an exemption for small oil refineries from America’s renewable fuel standards.
“Under the first Trump administration, that was basically used as a backdoor mechanism for cutting the size of the mandates,” Irwin said. “That has become a very contentious issue between the crude oil refining sector and the agricultural biofuels sector.”
Petroleum refiners have argued an increase in ethanol production would threaten to put small refineries out of business. Biofuel producers have argued most small refineries asking for exemptions are part of larger companies that could meet the new standards.
Critics of E15 expansion cite environmental, health concerns
Critics of expanding E15 sales have cited concerns around health and environmental effects.
The environmental group Clean Wisconsin released a statement in February arguing against expanding E15 sales year-round permanently, saying the accompanying increase in corn production would run the risk of contaminating drinking water through increased fertilizer and nitrogen application use. The organization also wrote the move would worsen pollution in the summer, leading to an increase in asthma attacks and respiratory infections.
Jeff Hadachek is an assistant professor and extension specialist in agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said an increase in E15 use could serve as a “double-edged sword” for the environment.
“If we’re making more of our fuels from corn ethanol, that’s less fossil fuels that we are extracting and emitting into the atmosphere,” Hadachek said.
“On the other side of this, cultivating more land also emits carbon into the atmosphere,” Hadachek continued. “Even though we may be reducing a carbon footprint from the pure fuel perspective, we also have to consider the impacts of purely just cultivating more land.”
Hadachek said farming practices have improved over the past few decades, which may serve to mitigate some of the environmental risks. He said the creation of the Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit would give tax breaks to biofuel producers as well, incentivizing farmers to be financially rewarded for growing crops for biofuel production.
Congress debates selling gas with 15 percent ethanol year-round permanently. Would it help Wisconsin farmers? was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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