Trump EPA Allows Summer Sales of Higher-Ethanol Gasoline
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration will waive higher-ethanol E15 gasoline from US volatility requirements this summer, expanding sales and delivering a win for corn farmers and biofuels producers.
“Through the waiver, we are fortifying the domestic gasoline supply chain and providing Americans relief at the pumps ahead of the upcoming summer driving season,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said. The agency said in a statement it would give drivers more options and deliver a bigger domestic market for farmers.
The waiver will run from May 1 until May 20, Zeldin said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. Bloomberg reported earlier that the agency would announce the waiver on Wednesday.
The move repeats a strategy President Donald Trump used in 2025 — and that was previously employed for three years under former President Joe Biden — to broaden the availability of E15 gasoline in summertime. It also comes as the Trump administration is taking steps to help ease energy costs for consumers amid the Iran war.
And it allows the president to tout a victory for an important political constituency — corn farmers, biofuel producers and rural voters — who have pushed for changes allowing year-round E15 sales. Some industry representatives have lobbied the EPA to clarify its plans for summer sooner, in time for filling stations and fuel distributors to adapt.
Under the approach, the EPA will issue emergency fuel waivers temporarily exempting E15 gasoline from volatility restrictions that effectively block warm-weather sales of the fuel in areas where smog is a problem.
Biden first ordered such emergency waivers in 2022, casting it as a bid to lower fuel prices — in a midterm election year. Similar dynamics now confront Trump, eight months before November midterm elections that are expected to hinge on voters’ concerns about the cost of living. Oil and gasoline prices have spiked amid the war in the Middle East that has paralyzed the movement of millions of barrels of crude.
“If ever there were justifiable conditions to merit an emergency waiver for E15, it would be now,” Brian Jennings, chief executive officer of the American Coalition for Ethanol, said in a statement.
E15, which is made with 15% corn-based ethanol, generally runs cheaper per gallon than conventional E10 gasoline — though it’s also less energy dense. Since the heat of summer increases the evaporation of all liquids, including gasoline, the US imposes more stringent limits between June 1 and Sept. 15 on Reid vapor pressure, the propensity for gasoline to evaporate and lead to smog.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can waive those requirements to address shortages. But the emergency waivers previously have drawn criticism from some refiners that argued they haven’t been adequately justified.
For years, ethanol producers and some fuel refiners have been pushing for more permanent change.
They’ve pressed Congress to rewrite federal law and effectively extend an existing Reid vapor pressure exemption that applies to E10 gasoline so it also applies to E15. But efforts to broker a legislative compromise have repeatedly stalled, with a recent push complicated by a fight over how to exempt some refiners from annual biofuel-blending quotas.
“It’s our hope that EPA’s action today does not take any of the heat off of a legislative fix,” said Geoff Cooper, chief executive officer of the Renewable Fuels Association.
A previous effort to make the shift through regulation also failed during Trump’s first term in the White House. At the time, the EPA finalized a rule that extended the E10 waiver to E15 — but a federal court tossed it out after a legal challenge by some refiners.
“We have to get out of this cycle of ad hoc emergency waivers every summer,” said Cooper, speaking on the sidelines of the Bloomberg Intelligence Farm, Food & Fuel Summit in Kansas City. “That’s not the certainty that the marketplace needs. It might help existing retailers limp along through the summer months, but it’s certainly not enough to lure new retailers into the E15 space.”
(Updates with industry reaction beginning in eighth paragraph.)
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