Brian Jennings, the American Coalition for Ethanol's Executive Vice President, wrote to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on 12/16/09 -- here are some key excerpts from the letter:
“While ACE strongly preferred that EPA would have announced approval of the use of E15 in all motor vehicles on December 1, we also recognize the Agency was under extraordinary pressure from special interests that oppose biofuels to reject the waiver outright. In the letter dated November 30 explaining EPA’s decision, we are very gratified that the Agency refuted these critics of ethanol, affirming ACE’s long-held position, saying that ‘it is clear that ethanol will need to be blended into gasoline at levels greater than the current limit of 10 percent.’ This statement and others contained in your response encourage us that the approval of up to E15 is inevitable – a matter of when, not if.”
“If EPA approves the use of E15 in newer vehicles by mid-year 2010, it will be a step in the right direction, but ACE will continue to note that the data supports the use of E15 in all vehicles. It has been pointed out that the data available to date does not contain any ‘showstoppers’ regarding the use of E15 in vehicles older than the 2001 model year. Surely we can all agree that if the data supports the use of E15 in all vehicle engines, than dividing the vehicle fleet will only cause unnecessary confusion for motorists and complications for petroleum marketers."“It is ACE’s strong contention that E15 should not be the highest and final mid-level blend of ethanol permitted to be used in the motor fuel supply,” ACE stated. “Ultimately we need to provide a range of choices for consumers. Lurching from the E10 blend wall to the E15 blend wall to the next blend wall is unintelligent and unsustainable. Instead, ACE advocates for consumers to be able to use E10, E15, E20, E30, E85 or ‘ethanol-free’ gasoline, and we believe that when consumers are finally given these meaningful choices through blender pumps, they will select the fuel that works best in their vehicles.”