ACTION ALERT: EPA WANTS TO INCREASE AMOUNT OF ETHANOL IN OUR GASOLINE!
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted a Renewal Fuel Standard (RFS) proposal that will require increasing the amount of ethanol in our gasoline, despite the costly and damaging toll it has on our motorcycles, chainsaw, lawnmowers, wave runners, snowmobiles, all terrain vehicles, and most ALL air cooled engines and passenger vehicles older than five years old.
The EPA’s (RFS) proposal forces an increase in the amounts of ethanol into America’s gasoline marketplace for 2015 and 2016. The proposal exceeds the E10 “blend wall” by hundreds of millions of gallons, resulting in higher blends such as E15. This means ethanol blends of 15 percent or higher likely will become more prevalent because of this proposed rule – resulting in an increased risk of misfueling with blends damaging to our equipment.
ACT NOW by telling the EPA you’re fed up with this policy! The EPA is accepting public comment before finalizing their proposal and our comments can make a huge difference for our community.
Submitting a comment is easy:
1. Go to: Comments on Ethanol to Federal Registry
2. Click on the green “Submit a Comment” button in the upper right-hand corner
3. Cut-and-Paste the attached sample comment into the web form. Be sure to include your name and address in the comment, and feel free to personalize this comment as needed.
4. If you are submitting on behalf of an organization, please include that information in the “organization” section. If you are submitting as an individual, you simply need to include your name and address in the comment section.
5. Check the box confirming you read the privacy statement sentence
6. Click the green “submit comment” button at the bottom.
7. Your voice needs to be heard—tell the EPA that they need to do everything in their power to keep ethanol out of our engines.
NOTE: If the link above does not redirect you to the EPA website, copy and paste the URL below into your web browser.
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/10/2015-13956/renewable-fuel-standard-program-standards-for-2014-2015-and-2016-and-biomass-based-diesel-volume-for
Sample Comment
Although the EPA’s proposed ethanol volumes are lower than the law, the EPA’s proposed standard for 2016 would break through the “blend wall,” to the point at which the volume exceeds the 10 percent limit known as E10 that is found in most gasoline.
Nearly 95 percent of vehicles on the road today, as well as lawn equipment, motorcycles, boats and other small engines, are not designed or warrantied to use fuel that exceeds E10. In fact, it is illegal to use a fuel that exceeds E10 in all small engines and in vehicles built before model year 2001.
But the EPA’s proposal also erodes consumer choice in what fuel they put in their tanks. While motorcyclists and boaters seek out pure gasoline, the agency’s proposal assumes consumption of that type of fuel will drop – even as recent data shows demand soaring.
In place of ethanol-free gasoline, the EPA wrongly assumes that more and more drivers will use E85.
The market, not a mandate, should drive which fuels are available to drivers at the local gasoline station. The EPA should lower the volumes for its final ruling to reflect reality of what drivers really want and what engines really need – instead of what the corn lobby demands.
