While EPA continues to research whether to increase the amount the ethanol blend from E10 to E15 in non-E85 vehicles, a coalition of ethanol groups Monday called for the EPA to immediately approve the E12 blend for all vehicles

The coalition is made up of the National Corn Growers Association, American Ethanol Coalition and the Renewable Fuels Association.  

According to the coalition, “Decreasing dependence on foreign oil is a key to this country’s environmental, energy and security policy, and the EPA must provide a practical and workable solution to the ethanol blend wall issue and do so soon. Allowing E12 for all motor vehicles as an interim step to a full waiver for E15 is a reasonable and defensible first step to solve the immediate problem.”

The coalition said that the EPA has a “clear basis and the authority to approve E12″.

According to Growth Energy, a coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters:

 “Growth Energy’s Green Jobs Waiver follows the statutory requirements of the law and contained more science supporting E15 than any waiver in the history of the Clean Air Act,” said Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “In that waiver, which was filed more than a year ago, we said that the EPA was free to use the data assembled in the waiver “to support an immediate increase to E12 or E13 while studying the merits and data relative to the 211(f)(4) waiver up to E15.”

Buis said that despite the “unnecessary delays” from EPA thus far, “…we expect that the EPA will approve E15 later this year and Growth Energy will continue to advocate solutions like E15 that create a market large enough for the ethanol industry’s continued expansion.”