As promised last month, President Joe Biden has issued an emergency fuel waiver allowing E15 gas to be sold across the country this summer in an effort to blunt sky-high fuel prices.

The sale of E15 gasoline—which contains a 15 percent ethanol blend—is generally prohibited from June to mid-September because of air-quality concerns.

“The president is committed to doing everything he can to address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump as a result of [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s price hike and his unjustified war’s impact on global fuel supply,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday, calling the fuel waiver a “critical step to address the fuel supply crisis.”

“At current prices, E15 can save a family 10 cents per gallon of gas on average and many stores sell E15 at an even greater discount and today’s waiver will allow families to pay that lower price for months to come,” Psaki continued.

Currently, E15 gasoline is offered at about 2,300 gas stations across the country.

Meanwhile, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, any sizable relief from high gas prices is unlikely to be seen in the near term. In Los Angeles, the average price for a gallon of regular gas climbed above $5.75 on March 9 and it hasn’t gone below that since. Nationally, the average price is $4.19, according to AAA data.

“We may not see consistently below $5 a gallon until there’s some long-term resolution between Russia and Ukraine,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told the Times.

Unpredictable crude oil prices and uncertainty in China over COVID outbreaks and lockdowns are adding more volatility to gas prices. “The volatility we’ve seen is wild,” De Haan said.

“The market is trying to digest all these factors that are significantly driving prices but changing day to day,” he continued.

The result is that gas stations are deciding to keep prices high in such an environment. “Stations would rather not lower prices than dip down and have to go back up later,” De Haan concluded.

As many Americans continue to feel the pain at the pump, the trucking industry is also being hit hard, according to Fox Business.

On Sunday, the price of diesel reached an all-time high in the United States at $5.296 per gallon—up more than 4 percent from one week ago and nearly twofold compared to last year.

“The prices are skyrocketing, and we still don’t get good prices for the loads,” Michal Agboire, who works for Maitland Trucking, told WNCN in Raleigh, North Carolina. “If it goes any higher than this, and the price of the load not coming up, then maybe we just call it quits,” he added.

In more bad news for Americans, the high cost of diesel is being passed on to consumers.

“To cover the increased cost of diesel, truckers must increase the rates charged to haul freight. These increased rates are then passed on to consumers via higher costs at the retail level,” Ron Faulkner, the president of Faulkner Trucking and 2022 president of the California Trucking Association, wrote in an op-ed for the Fresno Bee.

“So, you are paying for high prices of fuel both at the pump and at the grocery checkout line,” he concluded.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Finance and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.