FISCHER'S YEAR-ROUND 15%-PLUS ETHANOL BILL HAS OIL BACKING

LINCOLN — The U.S. Senate, with volatile gasoline prices top of mind, is inching toward a bipartisan solution to a years-long push for year-round sales of ethanol blends of 15% or more.

Bills to codify the change have shared support from agricultural organizations and biofuels boosters, including the congressional delegations from ag states like Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas.

But the 2022 version of the Consumer and Retail Choice Act from U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has something new: support from the oil lobby. The American Petroleum Institute’s public embrace of Fischer’s four-page amendment to the Clean Air Act makes the bill much more likely to pass, political observers explained.

What got “Big Oil” on board? Backers said the bill would create a more predictable national framework for handling E15 blends, instead of relying on a “patchwork” of state regulations.

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