Sponsors (9)
The bill reduces near-term compliance costs and regulatory uncertainty for many fuel retailers and encourages E100-ready infrastructure, but it raises safety and environmental risks for communities and shifts some costs and liabilities onto owners and nearby residents.
Owners/operators of existing underground storage tanks (especially small gas-station owners) can store up to E15 in many tanks without providing historical documentation or doing full-system replacements, avoiding inspections and costly retrofits.
Post-2005 steel and fiberglass tanks and FRP piping are explicitly treated as compatible and component-level demonstrations (e.g., gaskets, seals) are allowed, reducing uncertainty and enabling selective part replacement instead of full-system overhauls.
New or replaced USTs must be compatible up to E100, which supports future fuel flexibility and could facilitate broader adoption of higher-ethanol fuels.
Local and rural communities face increased environmental and safety risk because undocumented existing tanks are deemed compatible with E15 even if some systems are degraded or incompatible, raising the potential for leaks and contamination.
Station owners and other small-business UST operators will incur higher upfront equipment and installation costs when installing or replacing tanks/components required to handle E100.
Broad compatibility assumptions (for example, treating post-2005 tanks as compatible) could shift cleanup and liability burdens onto nearby communities if failures occur and individual tanks were not assessed.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Directs EPA to finalize a 2021 rule requiring E15 labeling, presuming many USTs compatible with E15, and requiring future UST installs be ethanol‑flexible up to E100.
Introduced August 1, 2025 by Adrian Smith · Last progress August 1, 2025
Requires the EPA Administrator to finalize a January 19, 2021 proposed rule on E15 fuel dispenser labeling and underground storage tank (UST) compatibility within 90 days of enactment. The law would require the EPA to adopt E15 labeling, treat many existing UST systems as compliant with fuel blends up to 15% ethanol even if owners lack compatibility paperwork, presume certain tank materials made after July 2005 (steel, fiberglass) and all fiberglass reinforced plastic piping are compatible with E15, allow component-level demonstrations to avoid full-system replacement, and require UST systems or components installed or replaced after the rule’s effective date to be compatible with fuel blends up to 100% ethanol.