Posted on 10/10/2018 4:07:38 AM PDT by Elderberry
President Trump chalked up his announcement on boosting ethanol for farmers in Iowa to his record of "promises made, promises kept," while speaking in Iowa Tuesday night.
"I made that promise to you during the campaign," Trump said. "I made that promise to you during the primaries. Promises made, promises kept."
"We're going with E15 year-round," Trump said early in his speech, admitting that the full announcement would come later in his remarks.
The plan would relax Environmental Protection Agency rules that restrict the sale of 15-percent ethanol fuel blends to eight months of the year. The EPA waiver for the E15 fuel would allow it to be sold year-round, which corn farmers and ethanol producers have been pushing the administration to do for months.
Later in the speech, Trump warned that ethanol production and E15 will be in jeopardy if Democrats take back Congress in November.
"The Dems will end ethanol, you know that," Trump said. "They're not going to approve ethanol. They will find a way to take it away. ... You better get out there and vote."
The second part of Trump's E15 plan seeks to reform the market that refiners use to buy ethanol credits in order to comply with EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard. The Renewable Identification Number credits, or RINs, have been a hot topic of debate among the oil industry.
The Trump plan is an attempt to settle a feud between the ethanol industry and refiners over the direction of the nation's renewable fuel program until Congress can agree on substantive reforms.
The refiners don't want to be subject to the high costs associated with the price of buying RINs. One company in Philadelphia said the high cost of RINs forced it to declare bankruptcy last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
No. If you aren’t buying E15 today, you won’t a year from now. No one is required to buy E15 anywhere.
I will take “wrong, but consistent with his campaign promises” over “wrong, and lied his a$$ off to get elected”.
However, I will admit I think it would be better to eliminate ethanol from gasoline altogether.
The question rises, who is effected by the change in the 15% rule?
As best I can tell, not me
The article notes that it is the congress that must eliminate the 15% rule all together.
Wait. What? Since when?
My car has a sticker on the inside of the gas door saying E-15 and E-85 are specifically not be used for this vehicle.
Ethanol is destructive garbage.
End this destructive mandate!
“....I have a 2012 SRT8. Can you tell me a little more about this exhaust upgrade?....”
I have a 2011 SRT8. Look up Borla exhaust on the net.
Also FWIW, mother MOPAR makes a cold air intake good for another 30+ hp.
My SRT fricken’ hates ethanol to the point I can tell just driving it. Fortunately, there are several ehtanol-free stations close by.
https://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/gasoline-not-corn-alcohol-belongs-in-our-fuel-tanks
President Donald Trump frequently boasts of his success in rolling back costly and harmful regulations. Let's hope that effort includes the renewable fuel standard (RFS).
The RFS is the latest phase in Congress's decades-long support for the ethanol industry. The problem is that support has outlived its usefulness.
When U.S. crude oil production began to decline in the mid-1970s and Middle Eastern countries began restricting oil exports to punish the U.S. for its pro-Israel policies, Congress decided to act.
It began subsidizing ethanol, a mostly corn-based renewable fuel that is blended into gasoline. The goal was to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil while creating a sustainable and more environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline.
But Congress took a different approach in 2005 when it passed the Energy Policy Act, which created the renewable fuel standard. The new law mandated that 4 billion gallons of ethanol be mixed into gasoline beginning in 2006.
Then Congress vastly expanded the mandate in 2007 when it passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which required a minimum of 36 billion gallons of ethanol to be mixed into gasoline by 2022.
While that expansion may have seemed reasonable a decade ago, it no longer does.
The primary reason is that the RFS mandate was created just when the U.S. fracking boom was taking off.
Innovative drilling techniques have allowed the U.S. to become the world's leading crude oil and natural gas producer. Oil production is high and prices are low.
By contrast, the ethanol mandate has pushed corn prices up by at least a third -- and often much higher -- since 2005.
The U.S. has become a net exporter of natural gas, and we could become a net crude oil exporter within five to 10 years.
Energy independence, which means energy security, is just around the corner. Thus the justification for mandating ethanol usage has largely vanished and may even be counterproductive.
Second, the environmental friendliness of ethanol is being reconsidered. Many environmental groups now realize that planting, growing and harvesting corn -- about 40 percent of U.S. field corn becomes ethanol -- takes large amounts of energy and water. And then the corn must be shipped to a processing plant and an oil refinery to mix in with the gasoline.
Another pressing problem is that more and more ethanol must be blended into gasoline every year. But gasoline usage has leveled off, which means that to meet the mandated ethanol goal the blend will have to rise from the current 10 percent to 15 percent or more.
And then there's the refiners' challenge. Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the largest refinery on the East Coast, recently filed for bankruptcy, blaming the RFS.
Refiners that don't meet their goal of mixing ethanol have to buy a type of credit, known as RINs, which can be very costly.
The management consulting company McKinsey & Co. recently reported that the credits translated into an additional cost of up to $4 barrel. For example, Valero Energy has projected annual spend on RINs in 2016 could total $850 million." That ain't chump change!
Democrats love ethanol and are even worse than Iowa corn farmers on supporting subsidies and mandates for ethanol use.
So, really the ethanol mandate has been extremely effective with it's real purpose, pushing up the cost of corn and lining the pockets of corporate farmers. This mandate uses the heavy hand of government to artificially manipulate the markets for the benefit of selected groups. This is the real and only reason this ugly mandate is still around today. There is not one other valid reason to maintain or expand this mandate.
This is the first time I have disagreed with the president.
Ethanol is bad policy for so many reasons.
Most cars are designed specifically for 87 and don’t recommend the higher octanes. I notice that some are requiring 91, VW caught my eye on that with one of their new models.
Ethanol is $hitty for the environment and $hitty for any fuel system pre-2016 its run through.
I’m not high on ethanol made from corn but in the grand scheme of things it’s a small item. Trump is attempting to keep all of his campaign promises to everyone. I could not be happier.
Any motor vehicle since the mid 2000s will burn most anything.
Of course not. Once created, subsidies never go away. We still have a "Strategic Helium Reserve" that dates back to WWI.
Meh. For all Trump’s good, I’ll take one bad.
Run on diesel.
Remove the subsidies and make ethanol available for EXPORT sale only.
Problem solved. Even the foreign market would gag on this!
This is one campaign promise I wish he hadn’t made,but overall he’s done very well. I really don’t know what they hope to accomplish with this E15 fuel,tho. Lots of units can’t use it according to manufacturer’s recommendations. I checked one local outlet & it was about 4¢ cheaper than regular,one octane number higher than mid-grade,& certainly no increase in mileage. What’s the point? To make a few people richer. Judging by most comments I am reading,people don’t want the crap.
/Ethanol is bad policy, bad economics, bad for engines, but great for the crony Ag lobby.
I agree, but the folks out here in Iowa like it. Front page news on our university newspaper. I respect our farmers, but it would be nice if they could see past their own interests sometimes.
Correct me if I’m wrong,but I am thinking that the only reason any of this ethanol stuff is cheaper is because it’s subsidized. Guess who pays for subsidization? Wish somebody could show figures as to what this actually costs the taxpayers to keep the ethanol industry in business.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.