Biden waiving ethanol rule in bid to lower gasoline prices
Published:Tuesday | April 12, 2022 | 5:03 PM
MENLO, Iowa (AP) — With inflation at a 40-year high, President Joe Biden journeyed to corn-rich Iowa on Tuesday to announce a modest step aimed at trimming gasoline prices by about a dime a gallon at a limited number of stations by waiving rules that restrict ethanol blending.
His action reflects the ways Biden is deploying almost every weapon in his bureaucratic arsenal to ease price pressures, yet the impact appears to be small and uncertain.
Inflation has only accelerated in recent months, instead of fading as Biden once promised it would after the recovery from the coronavirus recession following last year's $1.9 trillion relief package.
A government report Tuesday that consumer prices jumped 8.5% in March from a year ago — the worst reading since December 1981 — only deepened the political challenge for Biden and fellow Democrats ahead of this year's midterm elections.
More than half the increase came from higher gas prices, which spiked in part because of Russia's war in Ukraine, but costs also jumped for housing, food and other items.
Biden called the inflation report “Putin's price hike.”
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away,” the US president said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But in his remarks at the POET biofuels facility in Menlo, west of Des Moines, Biden acknowledged that the waiver on ethanol mixes was a small step.
Most gasoline sold in the US is blended with 10% ethanol, a biofuel that is currently cheaper than gas. Biden was announcing that the Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver to allow widespread sale of a 15% ethanol blend that is usually prohibited between June 1 and September 15 because of concerns that it adds to smog in high temperatures.
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