Ethanol

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Iowa is the leading producer of ethanol. About 43,000 jobs are connected with that production. Ethanol is produced from corn. Iowa is the No. 1 producer of corn in the United States.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill for 15 percent mixture of ethanol with petroleum gasoline. That is E15.

Up until now, E10--10-percent mixture--has been considered a pretty good success story. So expanding it will have more homegrown renewable energy, if we can get E15 nationwide year-round. And it takes legislation to make that happen.

In recent weeks, some of my colleagues have come to the floor to speak on this very same subject--some for E15 legislation and some against E15 legislation.

So I think there are a lot of myths about ethanol and E15 that need to be cleared up. One of those myths that continues to spread is that year-round, nationwide E15 is a mandate. So I want to be very clear: E15 legislation is not a mandate; it is a choice.

And it is this simple: You are driving into the filling station to fill up your car--even today with the high price that it is--you will see that you have a choice of gasoline with no ethanol or with 10- percent ethanol or E15.

The trouble is, not every retailer has it. But it is a choice when you go to the pump to punch the button you want for the type of gasoline that you want to put in your car.

I support E15 legislation because it removes both outdated and unnecessary redtape from the EPA. Just as an example of that redtape, the law says that in some parts of our country, you can't dispense ethanol in your gasoline in June, July, August, and September. You can't do it during those months.

However, we have been successful under 2 years of Trump 1, 4 years of Biden, and 2 years now of Trump, by Presidential waiver, that we can have E15 nationwide. But that is redtape that we shouldn't have to go through.

And that is the reason for the legislation. It would allow consumers to have a choice to purchase E15 year-round in all 50 States. And it takes legislation to do that because you will never get the retailers of gasoline to spend the money to update their pumps for E15 without the legislation. Some have done it now, trusting that there will be a Presidential waiver year after year, but a lot of retailers won't depend on that.

So this legislation is not a mandate because it would not force gas stations to sell E15 if they don't want to. However, because E15 saves consumers 10 to 30 cents per gallon, I suspect that many fuel retailers will choose to provide their customers with this high quality, low cost, homegrown fuel.

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