
The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has called on California to adopt the E15 fuel blend, which contains 15 percent ethanol, as a vital step toward meeting the state’s ambitious Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). RFA’s Chief Economist Scott Richman submitted detailed comments to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) emphasizing the environmental and economic benefits of E15.
Richman highlighted that E15 could reduce the cost of gasoline by 20 cents per gallon in California, where fuel prices are the highest in the nation. This change could lead to a collective annual saving of approximately $2.7 billion for Californian drivers, all while significantly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
The comments were made in response to proposed modifications to the LCFS by CARB on August 12. While supporting the transition to E15, the RFA criticized the expanded feedstock tracking requirements proposed by CARB as unnecessarily burdensome. These requirements were initially designed to monitor the expansion of biomass-based diesel but have been deemed excessive by the RFA in their current form.
In his critique, Richman noted that despite CARB’s decision to cap the generation of credits for biomass-based diesel from virgin soybean oil and canola oil, the board proposed stricter sustainability requirements. These include maintaining farm boundary coordinates, signing attestations about the land used for feedstock production, and fulfilling extensive chain-of-custody obligations.
The RFA suggests that all U.S.-produced ethanol should be considered compliant with the feedstock certification program if there is no expansion of aggregate cropland area beyond the 2007 baseline, aligning with the EPA’s standards under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard.
This move by the RFA represents a push to integrate more sustainable fuel options into California’s transportation sector, which continues to rely heavily on liquid fuels.