The sale of E15, gasoline with an ethanol content of 15%, is currently restricted during the summer months (June 1-September 15) under rules of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, emergency waivers allowing for year-round sales of E15 have been enacted every year since 2019, under both the Trump and Biden administrations. A nationwide waiver for 2026 summer month E15 sales has not yet been finalized.
The EPA revised its rules in 2024 allowing for a permanent waiver for E15 to be sold in summer months in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, beginning in 2025. Some members of Congress have proposed making year-round sales of E15 permanent nationwide. That work is now in the hands of a Congressional Task Force assigned to study and draft legislation. The February 25 deadline for that legislation to be introduced has passed with no action yet reported.
‘Ethanol and by-products’ is the second highest domestic use category in the supply and demand balance sheet for corn. In the 2005/06 marketing year, USDA reported corn for fuel at 1.6 billion bushels, 14% of that year’s 11 billion bushel corn crop. The current estimate of corn for fuel in 2025/26 is 5.6 billion bushels, about 33% of this year’s production of 17 billion bushels.
But the landscape of corn for fuel is changing. According to projections from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), we have likely seen peak gasoline consumption in the U.S. With increased new car fuel efficiency and a growing number of vehicles on the road that do not use any gasoline at all, the EIA projects gasoline consumption to fall from its peak of 143 billion gallons in 2018, to the current estimate of 135 billion gallons for 2026, down to 111 billion gallons by 2035 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. U.S. Gasoline and Ethanol Consumption, billion gallons
The blending mandate for ethanol is 10%, however, the actual share of ethanol consumption in the U.S. as a share of gasoline consumption is now 10.4%. The EIA report of ethanol use includes net exports. If the ethanol blending rate held steady at 10.4%, the projected decrease in gasoline consumption would mean a decline in ethanol fuel consumption from a peak of 14.2 billion gallons in 2025 to 11.5 billion gallons in 2035 (Figure 2). A decline of that magnitude of ethanol fuel would reduce corn use by about 1 billion bushels of corn in 2035 from current levels (at the current conversion rate of 2.93 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn).
However, in its February 2026 release of “USDA Agricultural Projections to 2035”, the USDA held corn ethanol use steady at 5.6 billion bushels throughout the projected time frame. The report notes the expected decline in U.S. gasoline consumption over the next decade but that increasing ethanol exports will hold corn for fuel use flat. Since 2016, ethanol exports have increased from 1.2 billion gallons (8% of total ethanol production) to 2.2 billion gallons in 2025 (13% of total ethanol production). It is expected that ethanol exports will continue to rise with the increasing blend mandates throughout the world.
What impact could the widespread adoption of E15 have on U.S. ethanol use?
Based on USDA’s long-term projections, we expect corn for fuel and ethanol use (domestic and exports) to hold steady at current levels. Based on EIA’s projections of gasoline use, if the blending rate were to increase by 1% per year from current levels to 15% in five years and hold steady after that, ethanol consumption would increase from around 14 billion gallons to 19 billion gallons in 2030. Thereafter, if the decline in gasoline consumption continued, ethanol use would decline back down to about 18 billion gallons.
To produce the extra ethanol for fuel would require 1 billion bushels over USDA’s current 5.6-billion-bushel baseline by 2028 and over 2 billion bushels in 2030. That increase falls back to 1.7 billion bushels over the current levels in 2035.
Figure 2. Ethanol Consumption and Corn for Fuel, E10 and E15
Widespread and year-round E15 has the potential to significantly impact ethanol use in the U.S., increasing the share of ethanol in overall motor gasoline consumption. This requires both industry providing supply and consumers providing demand. Legislation allowing year-round sales of E15 would give the fuel industry certainty for investment in production and infrastructure to provide the product. Year-round availability provides consumers with a product that they are more familiar with, has wider availability, and is generally a lower cost (Decision Innovation Solutions, 2026).
The benefit to farmers is the expansion of a key use category for corn. The U.S. corn farmer has shown the capacity to increase production in the face of rising demand. Building this demand base on stability and consistency in the fuel sector provides a foundation for long-term price support and some certainty during a time of uncertain markets.
References
Decision Innovation Solutions. Cumulative Effect of E15 Sales to Minnesota Consumers, January 2026, accessed March 9, 2026, https://www.mnbiofuels.org/images/pdfs/Cumulative%20Effects%20of%20E15%20Sales%20to%20Minnesota%20Consumers.pdf.
Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2025, accessed March 4, 2026, https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/.
Energy Information Administration. Short-term Energy Outlook, February 10, 2026, https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/.
USDA, Office of the Chief Economist. “USDA Agricultural Projections to 2035”, World Outlook Board, OCE-2026-1. February 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details?pubid=113816.
USDA, NASS. “Grain Crushings and Co-products Production”, March 2, 2026, https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/publication/grain-crushings-and-co-products-production.
USDA, NASS. “Grain Crushings and Co-products Production, 2024 Summary”, September 2025, https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/publication/grain-crushings-and-co-products-production-annual-summary.
