The Environmental Protection Agency announced it is extending the comment period by 60 days on a waiver application requesting an increase in the amount of ethanol blended into a gallon of gasoline to up to 15 volume percent (E15).
The original public comment period was to end on May 21, 2009, and will now end on July 20, 2009.
The current limit on the amount of ethanol that can be blended into a gallon of gasoline is at 10 volume percent ethanol (E10) for conventional (non flex-fuel) vehicles.
Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers submitted the E15 waiver application on March 6, 2009. The statutory provision calls for EPA to make a decision within 270 days of receipt, which is December 1, 2009. EPA said the comment period extension will not change this timeframe.
The gas now available with 10% ethanol is causing many problems in cars. How closely are the manufacturer’s adhering to 10%? Is this an average? Some of the gas is 3% and the next tank you fill up with is @ 27% The problems we are seeing in northern climates are related to gas line freeze up, the moisture in the fuel freezes when it is 20 degrees below zero and the fuel can not get to the engine. Result is the car does not start. We are hoping global warming will kick in soon and we won’t have such cold winters however the last 2 winters have been far colder than we are used to and the summers are not as warm as we remember. The ethanol is also highly corrosive compared to normal gas and causes all of the fuel system parts to wear out faster than normal creating millions of dollars in repairs nationwide that would not be there if ethanol was not added to our gas. Also ethanol is not as thermal efficient as regular gas and as a result gas mileage drops. In flex fuel vehicles that can run on E85 or regular the shift to E85 results in up to 1/3 loss in mileage. Right now the government is using your tax dollars to subsidize this inefficient fuel to the tune of 50 cents/gallon in order to make it an appealing choice. We are all paying for gas right now that many are not using. The hope of our Gov’t is that with the lower price of E85 we will all be too stupid to notice the drop in mileage and buy cars dedicated to E85, then when they drop the subsidy (paid for with your tax dollars) the price per gallon will jump 50 cents/gallon and you will be stuck with a vehicle that runs on this junk. Now they want to shift our current gas to include 15% ethanol! They are trying to slowly convert the nation over to E85 a little at a time without us stupid tax payers noticing. The billions of dollars that will be spent on extra gas to compensate for it’s inefficiency will be a burden to America not to mention the billions spent on repairs to cars that break down from using it and the time lost while your car is down and out. All of this to avoid opening up our Alaskan pipeline and using our own oil. China can drill off shore from California but we can’t because it might offend a seagull. Meanwhile my summers average 10 degrees colder than when I was a kid and we are getting more snow and colder winters. Please bring me some of that beautiful global warming as it is freezing out!
The main reason that politicians support ethanol is because Iowa is such a strategic state in the presidential primaries. Think about it.