In a letter to EPA this week, a group of seven Midwestern state governors requested that if emergency RVP waivers are granted for E15 gasoline this summer, the waivers should also apply to E10 in their states.

In past years, emergency RVP waivers only addressed E15 because the Clean Air Act contains a permanent RVP waiver for E10. But earlier this year, in an effort to spur the sale of E15 and support local biofuel production, the Midwestern states were allowed to opt out of the permanent E10 waiver.

NACS, in support of the request, joined a coalition letter to EPA yesterday, reiterating the need for nationwide emergency RVP waivers this summer and supporting the inclusion of E10 for the Midwestern states in addition to E15 nationally.

NACS and its cosigners wrote in the letter: “The continued nationwide availability of E15 in the summer months is necessary to help address the extreme and unusual fuel supply circumstances caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine and other geopolitical factors. Domestic stocks of crude oil and petroleum products remain near 20-year lows and are well below the levels that justified EPA’s issuance of emergency fuel waivers in recent years. Congress has expressly authorized EPA to act in response to ‘extreme and unusual fuel or fuel additive supply circumstances’ which prevent the distribution of an adequate supply of the fuel or fuel additive to consumers, provided such circumstances are the result of an ‘event that could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented and not the lack of prudent planning’ on the part of fuel suppliers, and it would be ‘in the public interest’ for EPA to exercise its waiver authority.”

Including E10 in the waivers, they added, "would guarantee that consistent and uniform fuel specifications for both E10 and E15 are applied nationwide for the upcoming summer, allowing for the most logistically flexible and economically efficient approach.”