Two leading US House Republicans asked the Government Accountability Office to explore the impact of allowing more ethanol to be used in gasoline.
Joe Barton (Tex.), the Energy and Commerce Committee's ranking minority member, and Greg Walden (Ore.), who fills that post on the Oversight and Investigations Committee, made their request in a Dec. 9 letter to Gene Dodaro, the US Environmental Protection Agency's acting comptroller general.
EPA said on Dec. 1 that it expects, sometime in mid-2010, to finally determine whether to raise the allowable ethanol content in gasoline to 15% from 10% in response to a request from Growth Energy, a biofuels industry association.
Barton and Walden said an August GAO report, "Biofuels: Potential Effects and Challenges of Required Increases in Production and Use," identified many challenges already.
"Current automaker warranties on vehicles are voided if ethanol exceeds 10% of motor fuel," they told Dodaro. "There are also concerns that higher blends, or even E10, as the GAO noted, could damage non-auto engines...," they said.
Designed for 10%
Most gasoline distribution and storage systems are designed to dispense and store products with up to 10% ethanol, and not higher blends, the federal lawmakers continued. "Leak detection technologies used in underground storage tank systems have been developed for use for petroleum fuel and would need to be tested for performance with higher [ethanol content] fuel blends."
Barton and Walden said another strategy that GAO identified was greater use of vehicles running on fuels with 85% ethanol and the development of related infrastructure, such as dedicated ethanol pipelines to transport ethanol from the Midwest to the East and West coasts, dedicated tank system for storing E85, and specialized pumps and equipments to dispense it.
"As with increasing ethanol blend percentages, this strategy also may involve substantial costs and liabilities that have not yet been fully assessed or estimated," they said.
Study areas
They suggested that GAO investigate the extent of the federal government's risk and associated liability if it allowed the use of intermediate ethanol blends which damaged vehicles and other equipment and systems, the key components of the nation's motor vehicle and equipment fleets most at risk, durability and performance of vehicles and equipment with intermediate ethanol blends, and economic challenges to using dedicated ethanol pipelines.
The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and 13 other organizations originally expressed concerns about possibly higher ethanol levels on Dec. 22, 2008.
"There has not been sufficient testing of motor vehicle and nonroad equipment engines" to determine that air quality, engine compatibility, and safety needs would be met, they said in a letter to then-EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.
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