DES MOINES, Iowa -- The president of the Iowa Senate thinks if the ethanol identification stickers were removed from gasoline pumps at stations in the state, motorists would buy more of the corn-based fuel, reported The Des Moines Register.
State Sen. Jack Kibbie (D) said legislation he has introduced that would allow gas stations to remove the labels would apply only to E10. E85, biodiesel and other renewable fuels would still have to be labeled on the pump. Businesses would decide on their own whether to remove the E10 labels, which are required now.
Kibbie said E10 ethanol blends [image-nocss] account for 73% of gasoline sales in Iowa, a percentage that has not risen the past few years. He is trying to mask the contents in part so out-of-state motorists who do not necessarily support ethanol will still purchase it, the report said.
Kansas made a similar move, and ethanol sales soared, according to the report.
"My goal is to increase the use of ethanol in Iowa," Kibbie told the newspaper. "Sometimes, people driving through Iowa on the interstates, who don't know as much about ethanol as we do, see those stickers and say, 'I don't want any of that stuff!' So they put in high-octane fuel that costs 10 cents a gallon more."
The bill was approved unanimously by a state Senate committee. The bill could be debated in the Senate this week, Kibbie said.
Talk of requiring ethanol in all Iowa gasoline never got traction in the Legislature the past couple of sessions, said the report. Kibbie said his bill is a way to support the industry through voluntary measures. Minnesota and Missouri have laws that generally require ethanol in all fuel blends.
Tara Deering-Hansen, a spokesperson for West Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go, said the chain would leave the stickers on, even if the bill passes and is signed into law. "We believe our customers want to know this information," she told the paper.
Dawn Carlson, president of the Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores of Iowa, said most of the 1,500 retailers in her organization would leave the stickers on. "We're not sure why [Kibbie] is doing this. We didn't ask for it. We think it will confuse consumers. People have a right to know what they are buying. For whatever reason, 25% of consumers are choosing not to buy ethanol, even if it means paying a dime more a gallon for 87 octane," she told the Register.
Bill Brauch, director of the consumer protection division of the attorney general's office, said his staff has no official position on the bill. "The pros include the fact that ethanol sales would rise," he told the paper. "The cons include the fact that there are people, for whatever reason, who choose not to buy ethanol, even though it means paying more for less octane."
Some motorists have older cars, or high-performance models, that should not burn ethanol, he added.
If the bill passes, Brauch's office would tell consumers to buy gasoline only at stations that leave the labels on, or to ask which pumps hold E10 and which don't, he said.
Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said members of his organization want the state to remove the requirement that stations post the ethanol label on E10 pumps, but they are not pushing the issue. They are more interested in the proposal that would clear the way for stations to start selling ethanol in 87 octane blends, rather than just 89 octane, he told the paper.
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