Recent legislation proposed in the U.S. Senate that would repeal the renewable fuel mandate for American gasoline may become the last hope for groups concerned with the damage such fuel can create in small engines and older vehicles. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in June that challenged the EPA's approval of a higher blend of ethanol-based fuel.

The U.S. Supreme Court has elected not to hear a lawsuit brought by group of trade organizations that challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's clearance of a 15-percent-ethanol fuel blend (E15) for widespread use.

The appeal, sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute and other like-minded groups in February, reached the high court after the D.C. Circuit Court denied a challenge of the EPA's waiver that allowed E15 to enter the marketplace. The Supreme Court declined to comment on their decision, which, by default, upheld the Circuit Court's ruling that the lawsuit lacked standing to challenge the EPA decision.

The EPA approved a partial wavier for the use of E15 in 2001, and signed off on use of the fuel in newer light duty vehicles in January 2011. Since then, several legal challenges have been filed by trade associations concerned with the damage E15 can cause in engines, particularly those found in landscape maintenance equipment, boats and other small-engine machinery. OPEI President Kris Kiser spoke with landscapearchitect about the dangers of E15 last year, warning that use of the fuel in small engines can cause corrosion and void equipment warranties.

The EPA's push for increased ethanol in commercial fuel is mandated by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a program passed in 2005 that requires renewable fuels to be blended into transportation fuel in increasing amounts each year, escalating to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Corn-based ethanol has been the method of choice for meeting these standards since the mandate was put in place.

Legislation to ease the stringencies of the RFS has cropped up in Congress in recent months. The most recent is "The Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act" (S. 1195), announced June 20 by U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), which would repeal the RFS entirely. The senators state that the mandate has created higher food and fuel costs, which have been exacerbated by recent droughts that reduced corn crops. Ten states have petitioned the EPA to suspend the mandate, citing the drought, but the EPA rejected the requests.

In April, a bill in the House of Representatives sought to remove the corn-based ethanol standards in the RFS. Despite a bipartisan group of 42 co-sponsors, the bill has not made it out of the committee stage.