Ever since the use of E15 has been approved, rules and warnings against its use have been popping up left, right and center. Now a new mandate for the 15 percent ethanol, 85 percent gasoline mixture is causing more users to be up in arms.
Service stations that offer E10 or E15 are now required to sell a minimum of four gallons to the customer in order to protect the engine of the next customer’s vehicle. This is due to the fact that the fueling hose retains roughly one-third of a gallon from the previous fill-up and the proceeding customer could get a different mixture if they were to fill up less than four gallons.
While on paper it seems like the mandate is there to protect the consumer, it’s more of an annoyance than anything else. Customers may not want to purchase at least four gallons of E15 while at the pump, but are now required to do so. In short, the EPA is basically mandating how much gasoline an American consumer has to purchase while filling up at the pump.
[Source: New York Times]