The Environmental Protection Agency is reducing next year’s
mandatory inclusion of ethanol in gasoline by three billion gallons – between
15 and 15.5 billion gallons compared with the previously-set mandate of 18.15
billion gallons.
The EPA said one of the reasons for the cut is that it wants
to hold ethanol to less than 10 per cent in gasoline, and if the mandatory
minimum had been held at 18.15 billion gallons, it would have been more than 10
per cent.
Corn producers immediately complained about the lower
minimum.
Ever since the U.S. government declared a minimum for
ethanol to be blended into gasoline, the price of corn has been significantly
higher than before ethanol was distilled as a fuel.
Canadian law sets ethanol minimums as a percentage of
gasoline – five per cent under federal law and more in some provinces.
