Year-round E15 stuck in Senate farm bill as lawmakers prepare to leave Washington
Renewable fuel groups are pressing the Senate to clear year-round E15 before lawmakers leave town this week, with the measure tied up in the farm bill package. Permanent nationwide access to E15 has passed the House but has not cleared the Senate, and the calendar is working against it.
The pitch is price. Geoff Cooper of the Renewable Fuels Association says E15 is selling 20, 30, sometimes 40 cents a gallon under regular gasoline, and he wants consumers to have permanent access while pump prices are high. For a c-store operator, the current patchwork of summer waivers is the problem. A permanent fix would let retailers commit to the blend at the pump instead of guessing each year whether they can sell it June through September.
The 45Z credit
Ethanol producers are getting their first real shot at the Section 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit. It came out of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, got extended and reworked in the One Big Beautiful Bill of 2025, and the final rule is in its last stages. Earlier this month the IRS published the 2026 emissions-rate table, a 2025 safe harbor, transition rules, and pulled in USDA's Feedstock-Carbon Intensity Calculator so regenerative-ag practices count toward lower feedstock carbon intensity.
The credit pays on carbon intensity, so a plant that can document cleaner corn and cleaner processing earns more per gallon. That math could push margins around at the producer level once the rule locks.
The export play
USDA rolled out an "American Biofuels Trade Outlook" aimed at opening overseas markets for US ethanol. It follows a record 2025: 2.2 billion gallons exported, worth about $4.7 billion. Secretary Brooke Rollins says the plan directs federal agencies to lean on trading partners over rules that restrict crop-based biofuels and to push wider adoption of higher blends abroad.
Export demand matters to the domestic side because it soaks up gallons that would otherwise sit in the US market and pressure rack prices.
Ethanol at the dock
Maersk completed the first commercial ethanol bunkering of a deep-sea container vessel in US waters. It's a marine-fuel data point, not a jobber story yet, but a new outlet for ethanol volume is worth tracking if it scales.
What to watch
Whether the Senate moves E15 before recess, or the measure waits on a full farm bill that has no clear date. Watch the 45Z final rule for the locked emissions-rate values, since that sets what producers actually earn. And watch whether export and marine demand keep pulling gallons out of the domestic pool.