Legislation Would Require All Vehicles to Be Flexible Fueled

On November 10th, several Senators from midwestern states introduced the Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act. The bill would require all U.S. marketed vehicles to be manufactured as Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) within ten years. FFVs can use both regular gasoline and varying blends of renewable fuels like E-85 (motor fuel with 85 percent ethanol content).

The bill would require 10 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. to be FFVs within 18 months of passage, increasing by 10 percent for each subsequent model year. A vehicle credit trading program is also established that will allow companies that manufacture more FFVs than required to sell credits to companies that have manufactured less than required.

In addition to advancing higher percentages of renewable fuel usage, enacting this legislation could be an important development for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) marriage with the biofuels market.

Renewable biofuels can't meet today's overall fuel demands but they could meet the demand of a transportation system fueled primarily from electricity. By expanding the on-board battery capacity of HEVs and/or allowing HEVs to charge from the power grid would mean that overall fuel requirements would drop to a level where biofuels could supply most if not all of our transportation fuels.

The New Rules Project - http://www.newrules.org/