House sends $12 billion farm aid bill to Senate with year-round E15 still unresolved
The House passed a $12 billion farm aid bill and moved it to the Senate without settling year-round E15, RFD-TV reported. Summer sales of the 15 percent blend stay stuck where they have been for several seasons, dependent on the Senate acting or on annual workarounds. For retailers who already spent money on E15-rated dispensers and tanks, that is another year of selling a fuel they cannot count on offering in June.
The E15 poll
Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Geoff Cooper is pushing a new voter poll showing record support for year-round higher-ethanol blends, and he wants the numbers to move a bill through the Senate. Cooper says the support is bipartisan and driven by high pump prices and global instability, particularly in the Middle East, with E15 pitched as the cheaper option at the dispenser.
E15 is available at roughly 5,000 stations nationwide. That is a small share of the retail base, and it stays small as long as the summer question is open. Polling has not yet moved a vote.
The renewable biomass bill
Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Cliff Bentz introduced a bill to widen the RFS definition of renewable biomass. Broadening what counts as qualifying feedstock could change which gallons generate RINs and from what. Details on scope and feedstocks are thin so far, and the text is worth reading before anyone prices in a RIN effect.
Brazil ethanol
US tariffs have left Brazil looking for new ethanol buyers, according to StoneX. At the same time, Brazilian federal prosecutors are moving to block an increase in the country's gasoline ethanol blend, Reuters reported. Both matter to US ethanol producers for the same reason: Brazilian gallons that cannot come here and cannot be absorbed at home have to go somewhere, and that competes with US export volume in the same markets. Export demand has been holding domestic ethanol values up.
Bushmills fine
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency fined Bushmills Ethanol $13,215 for exceeding air permit limits at its Atwater plant in Kandiyohi County on August 5 and 6, 2025. Testing the company ran itself showed PM10, PM2.5, and VOC emissions above permit levels. Bushmills agreed to retest. The dollar figure is small, but self-reported stack tests turning into penalties is a reminder for anyone running an ethanol or biodiesel plant on a similar permit.
Honeywell closed its purchase of Johnson Matthey's Catalyst Technologies business for £1.325 billion in cash, adding refining and petrochemical catalyst capacity.
What to watch
Whether the Senate takes up E15 separately now that the farm aid bill has moved without it, the actual feedstock language in the Merkley-Bentz bill, and where Brazilian ethanol lands if its domestic blend increase stays blocked.