Last week, the Trump Administration signed an emergency waiver to allow for the selling of E-15 gasoline during the summer months.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig is appreciative of the Trump Administration for the waiver, but the issue continues to be with a federal law that essentially bans E-15 from being sold across the country from May 1st through mid-September. 

“This thing is all a technicality because when this law was put in place, nobody envisioned E-15. E-10 seemed like a dream. And so, it’s simply a case where we need to modernize the law.”

Naig points out that the challenge lies with the United States Congress to change that law and permanently allow selling E-15 nationally, especially that we are at a point in society with so much uncertainty in the supply chain and fuel prices shooting up.

“The Iowa experience is that when consumers have access to E-15, or we might know it as Unleaded 88, Iowans have saved, and this is becoming a very real number, Iowans have saved $125 million over the last three years alone now, just pumping E-15 versus E-10. And now we have even more fueling stations in Iowa carrying E-15. That number is only going to grow.”

Naig adds that there are several benefits to ethanol blended gasoline including farmers and the demand for corn, creating jobs in the ethanol industry, E-15 being a cleaner fuel choice for the environment and the consumer saving $0.10-0.15 per gallon of gasoline. His office continues to pursue the matter at the federal level.