{"id":3921,"date":"2019-08-01T06:22:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T06:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2019-08-01T06:22:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T06:22:15","slug":"oil-industry-poised-to-attack-as-trump-boosts-ethanol-in-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=3921","title":{"rendered":"Oil Industry Poised to Attack as Trump Boosts Ethanol in Fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oil industry foes are preparing to go to court to fight the\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0regulation issued Friday that allows year-round sales of higher-ethanol E15 gasoline nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>The agency\u2019s\u00a0final rule\u00a0offers ethanol producers and corn farmers the promise of greater market access and demand &#8212; but the coming legal battle will be the true test of that potential.<\/p>\n<p>The regulation fulfills President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0promise\u00a0to unleash ethanol sales and is a potent show of support to Midwestern farmers who are suffering from Chinese tariffs on soybeans, flooding that destroyed stockpiled grain and a deluge of rain that has delayed plantings. With some 37% of America\u2019s corn production going to ethanol mills, any regulatory move lifting demand for the fuel could buttress farmers who helped propel Trump to the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Iowa Republican leaders and biofuel industry boosters will celebrate the shift with EPA\u2019s Region 7 administrator during an event at Elite Octane LLC\u2019s dry mill ethanol plant in Atlantic, Iowa\u00a0later Friday. Trump is expected to address the issue during\u00a0a visit to the state\u00a0next month.<\/p>\n<div id=\"desktop-in-article-1-PSBOVMDWRGG401\" class=\"page-ad\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"presentation\" data-position=\"desktop-in-article\">\n<div class=\"desktop-in-article-ad-dummy\">The EPA rule waives E15 gasoline containing 15% ethanol from vapor pressure requirements that have blocked sales from June 1 to September 15 in areas where smog is a problem, said Bill Wehrum, the assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation. That should cause \u201ca bump\u201d in sales at the roughly 1,200 filling stations that already sell E15 today, while encouraging more of them to offer it, Wehrum told reporters on a conference call.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cOver time, we believe and the industry believes you will see more E15 sold as the infrastructure in the gasoline distribution system and especially at gas stations catches up to the availability of this fuel,\u201d Wehrum said. This is going to result in a \u201csubstantial increase\u201d in E15 sales, he said.<\/p>\n<p>At Trump\u2019s direction, the EPA bundled the E15 shift with\u00a0modest changes meant to boost transparency\u00a0and prevent price manipulation in the trading of credits used by refiners to prove compliance with annual biofuel blending quotas. Large integrated oil companies, including\u00a0ExxonMobil Corp.,\u00a0BP America Inc.\u00a0and\u00a0Chevron Corp., had argued against the EPA\u2019s initial proposal of more aggressive trading limitations.<\/p>\n<p>Wehrum said the agency would continue examining allegations of market manipulation and respond to them if needed. \u201cWe\u2019re applying the theory of first do no harm,\u201d he said, noting that proposed position limits and sale requirements \u201ccould reduce the flexibility of the market and the efficiency of the market.\u201d While the agency takes the issue seriously, he said, the EPA has not yet found clear evidence of significant manipulation.<\/p>\n<p>Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, praised the EPA\u2019s action, saying it would mean more consumer choice and savings at the pump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president had made this promise a long time ago: He was really going to work hard for farmers\u2019 support and the Renewable Fuel Standard,\u201d she said by phone. \u201cAnd he\u2019s coming through with that promise at a time when it\u2019s desperately needed. It\u2019s something we were going to work toward anyway, but it does bring much-needed relief at a very critical time for our farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline-newsletter\" data-state=\"ready\"><\/aside>\n<p>Ethanol is already a staple of America\u2019s fuel supply, accounting for about 10% of total consumption. Biofuel boosters who have lobbied for the regulatory shift are betting 15% will eventually emerge as the standard.\u00a0Green Plains Inc.\u00a0Chief Executive Officer Todd Becker said this month that the higher blend puts in play \u201cyear-round demand growth of at least 200 million gallons of annualized incremental demand as only the starting point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That would come at the expense of oil.<\/p>\n<div id=\"desktop-in-article-2-PSBOVMDWRGG401\" class=\"page-ad\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"presentation\" data-position=\"desktop-in-article\">\n<div class=\"desktop-in-article-ad-dummy\">\u201cThis action by EPA makes no sense and is contrary to the law, congressional intent and decades of agency precedence,\u201d said Frank Macchiarola, a group director at the American Petroleum Institute. \u201cWe will challenge it vigorously.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The American Petroleum Institute previewed its legal argument in\u00a0public comments, arguing that the agency is flouting the plain text of the Clean Air Act by extending an existing waiver to E15.\u00a0Marathon Petroleum Corp.warned the EPA\u2019s move to consider E15 \u201csubstantially similar\u201d to conventional E10 gasoline is \u201carbitrary and capricious\u201d &#8212; a fatal failing under a federal law governing rulemaking. And the\u00a0American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers\u00a0insisted the EPA is taking action previously rejected by\u00a0Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Ethanol advocates argue the EPA is on solid legal footing. The agency\u2019s move to grant a waiver to E15 \u201creflects the best, most natural reading\u201d of the Clean Air Act, and that higher-ethanol blend is substantially similar to E10, said Growth Energy Chief Executive Officer Emily Skor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oil industry foes are preparing to go to court to fight the\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0regulation issued Friday that allows year-round sales of higher-ethanol E15 gasoline nationwide. The agency\u2019s\u00a0final rule\u00a0offers ethanol producers and corn&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,22],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-oil-gas","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}