Ethanol Creating Stink Between EPA And Automakers

Historically, there’s never been a lot of love lost between carmakers and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The latest battle kicked off in late December 2010, when the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers—the trade association representing Detroit’s Big Three carmakers, Toyota Motor Corp., and eight other car companies—joined other trade groups in filing a legal petition that challenged a decision the EPA made in October.

It granted a partial waiver that approved the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol (E15) for all 2007-model-year-and-newer passenger cars and light trucks.

Ethanol is added to gasoline to help oxygenate the fuel, allowing it to burn more completely, which ostensibly improves emissions. The current standard had limited the amount of ethanol blended with gasoline to 10 percent.

Ethanol has been controversial for a variety of reasons. The powerful Midwest farm lobby supports ethanol becaue it is primarily produced using corn, though critics say that ethanol production wastes more gasoline to produce than it saves by being burned as fuel. Ethanol can have a detrimental effect on some materials commonly used in fuel systems in older vehicles. Gasoline blended with ethanol contains less energy than pure gasoline, as well.

The ethanol rulings have drawn parties other than car manufacturers into the fray. The legal petiton filed back in December was the result of a coalition that’s calling itself the Engine Products Group, representing carmakers as well as manufacturers of other engine-powered products like boats, lawnmowers, and snowblowers that belong to the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, and the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute. Oil companies and refineries are also parties to the suit, siding with the Engine Products Group.

“By approving E15 use in a small subset of engines on the road, there is a high risk that consumers will unknowingly or mistakenly put E15 in products for which it has not been approved,” said Kris Kiser, a spokesman for the Engine Products Group.

Kiser said that “all members of the Engine Products Group have supported, and continue to support, the development and use of safe and sustainable alternative fuels.” But to permit E15 to be sold as a legal fuel, even if limited only to certain products, “would have adverse consequences for the environment and consumers,” claimed Kiser. “A partial waiver, by its nature, necessarily will result in the mis-fueling of products not designed or tested for E-15 use.”

“We also believe EPA has failed to follow the science all the way through,” said Matt Hartwig, the RFA’s director of public affairs. “If it had, it could have avoided this market confusion. It is our reading of the available science that the EPA could have and should have approved E15 for use in all cars and light duty vehicles. Ethanol is a safe and effective fuel.”

The RFA is still pushing the EPA to permit E15 in pre-2001 models, but the EPA said a decision on those older models will not be made any time soon, because not enough testing has been done on them to warrant an approval.

source: autoracingdaily