E15 is Good for Consumers and Farmers

Troy Schneider, board member with National Corn Growers Association, discusses ongoing efforts to secure year round sales of E15, which is a key issue when it comes to corn industry policy discussions.

“I have a good feeling with Senator Grassley, Senator Fisher, this act will get through. And this is something that comes at no cost the American consumer, and it will put money back into rural, rural America. So for E 5, I mean 98% over 98% of all gasoline in the United States has 10% ethanol in it right now. So everybody's using it. We're asking to go up to 15% year round. Instead of this hodgepodge that we've had of summertime waivers, of being able to use E15 during the summer, we have E15 during the winter, but we don't have it year round.”

Schneider says that ethanol contributes about 15 billion gallons to the US fuel supply annually, reducing gasoline prices by an average of 25 cents a gallon. Advocates like NCGA are pushing for a year round availability of E15 to ensure stability for both farmers and consumers.

As Schneider points out, “Year round E15 would basically use an additional 2.3 billion bushels per year if we had year round E15.”

As corn farmers are looking at a third year of losses, according to Schneider.