A bill that would immediately authorize the sale of higher-ethanol fuel in California and leapfrog state regulators’ rulemaking process is gaining traction amid widespread concerns about gasoline prices.
What happened: AB 30, from Assemblymember David Alvarez, cleared the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on a unanimous vote Wednesday, an important milestone after a previous version of the bill authored during last year’s gas special session, ABX2-9, cleared the Assembly but was never taken up in the Senate.
Why it matters: California is the only state that caps the amount of ethanol allowed to be blended with gasoline at 10 percent, one of the factors that contributes to higher fuel prices in the state.
A study last year by the University of California, Berkeley, and U.S. Naval Academy economists found that adopting E15 could lower gasoline prices by 20 cents per gallon.
