The Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to implement a request by eight Midwest states to sell 15 percent ethanol blends during the summer driving season. However, the change does not begin until 2024. American Coalition for Ethanol CEO Brian Jennings said this is too little, too late. “Most of these Midwest states made this request to the EPA in the spring and early summer of 2022 and the law requires EPA to go ahead and approve those requests within 90 days of receiving them as long as the data shows that allowing E15 would reduce evaporative emissions. Those states met that condition, but EPA still sat on this until March 1 of 2023.” Minnesota and South Dakota are two of the states impacted by this EPA decision. With this delay, Jennings says consumers will likely pay more for gasoline this year.
