Senate hearing advances E15 push, 45Z guidance expected soon

The Senate Agriculture Committee on June 10 pressed Brooke Rollins for a timetable on USDA’s 45Z feedstock guidance as lawmakers renewed the push for year-round E15 and left producers waiting on two separate federal decisions. Rollins told senators the guidance was imminent but would not give an exact release date, while Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., called E15 one of his top priorities and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said there was strong agreement in the committee that E15 legislation should pass.

The bottleneck now runs through 45Z implementation. Section 45Z, created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, applies to qualifying transportation fuel produced and sold from 2025 through 2027, and Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations in February to set the rules for credit eligibility, emissions rates, certification and registration. USDA’s feedstock guidance matters because it feeds into the lifecycle carbon intensity calculations that determine credit value, and senators from farm states have been pressing for that guidance since at least July 2024. Rollins said there were multiple hands in the “proverbial rule pot” and that the administration was trying to move quickly. She also said she recently met with ethanol buyers in England.

E15 remains the other unresolved piece. E15, gasoline blended with up to 15% ethanol, generally cannot be sold from June 1 through Sept. 15 because of federal Reid vapor pressure limits under the Clean Air Act. The House passed H.R. 1346, the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, on May 13 by a 218-203 vote. The bill would allow nationwide, year-round E15 sales and change the Renewable Fuel Standard’s small refinery exemption program, but the Senate path remains uncertain even as Senate Majority Leader John Thune says work is underway on a new bill.

The political split is sharper outside the committee room. The American Petroleum Institute backed the House-passed measure in May and urged the Senate to act, while environmental organizations opposed year-round E15 expansion. Rollins told Marshall she was “100% onboard” with efforts to pass E15 legislation, and the farm-state case remains the same: without a permanent fix, ethanol plants, corn growers and fuel retailers are still making planning decisions around temporary rules that can change only if Congress or Treasury finally acts.