Most gasoline sold in the US is mixed with 10% ethanol. The Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency exemption to allow the widespread sale of a 15% ethanol mixture that is usually banned between June 1 and September 15 due to concerns that it adds to the smog at high temperatures. Senior Biden government officials said the move would save drivers an average of 10 cents per gallon at 2,300 gas stations. These stations are mostly located in the Midwest and South, including Texas, according to industry groups. The move comes as Biden faces growing political pressure on inflation as new data showed on Tuesday that prices have been rising at the fastest pace for more than 40 years, in part due to spikes in energy prices during the Russia war. -Ukraine. The Ministry of Labor announced on Tuesday that the consumer price index jumped 8.5% in March from 12 months earlier, the largest increase from year to year since December 1981. Administration officials said the EPA had begun analyzing the “emergency” step to allow more sales of E15 gasoline for the summer and found it unlikely to have a significant impact on ground air quality. This is despite the fact that some environmentalists have long argued that more ethanol in the gas increases pollution. Biden is set to announce the move to a biofuel company in Menlo, west of Des Moines. Iowa is the country’s largest producer of corn, key to ethanol production. The resignation is another attempt to ease global energy markets that have been shaken since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month, the president announced that the United States would release 1 million barrels of oil a day from the country’s strategic oil reserves over the next six months. The government said it had helped cut gas prices slightly recently, having averaged about $ 4.23 a gallon by the end of March, up from $ 2.87 a year earlier, according to the report. with AAA. “Not only is this decision a major victory for American drivers and our nation’s energy security, but it means cleaner pump choices and a stronger rural economy,” said Emily Skor, CEO of the Growth Energy biofuels group. Members of Congress from both parties had also urged Biden to withdraw from the E15. “Iowa’s domestic biofuels provide a quick and clean solution to lower pump prices, and boosting production would help us become energy independent once again,” said Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. He was among nine Republicans and seven Democratic senators from the Midwest who sent Biden a letter last month urging him to allow E15 sales year-round. The trip will be Biden’s first as president in Iowa, where his 2020 election campaign ended lame in fourth place in the state’s technologically troubled parliamentary group. After returning to win the Democratic nomination, Biden returned for a rally at Iowa State Fairgrounds four days before Election Day 2020, only to see Donald Trump win the state by 8 percentage points. Biden returns to the state at a time when he faces even more political danger. He is facing declining acceptance rates and inflation at a high of 40, while his party faces the prospect of major midterm electoral losses that could cost him control of Congress. The president also planned to launch his financial plans to help rural families struggling with higher costs, and stressed the $ 1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed last fall. The law includes money to improve Internet access, as well as to modernize sewer systems, reduce flood threats and improve roads and bridges, drinking water and electricity networks in sparsely populated areas. “Part of it appears in communities of all sizes, regardless of the outcome of the last election,” said Jesse Harris, who was a senior adviser on Biden’s 2020 campaign in Iowa and directed the exit polls and early voting for Barak. Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. Harris said most presidents visiting Iowa usually go to the state’s largest cities. The hit of an area like Menlo, part of Guthrie County, which backed Trump against Biden by 35 percentage points in 2020, “demonstrates the importance the government attaches to infrastructure in general, but also to infrastructure in rural and smaller communities.” The Biden government plans to spend the next few weeks pushing billions of dollars into funding for rural areas. Cabinet members and other senior officials will travel to the country to help communities access the cash available as part of the infrastructure package. “The president is not making this trip through a political prism,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “He is making this trip because Iowa is a rural state of the country that will benefit greatly from the president’s policies.” However, government officials have long suggested that Biden travel more to boost the economy, which is recovering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment among Americans has dropped to its lowest level since 1970, for example. However, much of the positive news for jobs nationwide has been overshadowed by rising gas, food and housing prices that have offset wage gains. “Perhaps a trip back to Iowa is exactly what Joe Biden needs to understand what his reckless spending, the big government policies in our country, are doing,” said Iowa Republican Party leader Jeff Kaufman. After Iowa, Biden will visit Greensboro, North Carolina on Thursday. Psaki accused Russia’s war in Ukraine of contributing to rising gas prices, and said the government expects the consumer price index for March to be “extremely high” largely because of it. The EPA has lifted seasonal restrictions on the E15 in the past, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The Trump administration allowed the sale of the E15 in the summer months two years later, but the rule was overturned by a federal appeals court.
Associated Press author Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
