EPA Delivers Proposed RVOs to White House

By Ryan Hanrahan

Agri-Pulse’s Rebekah Alvey reported that “the Environmental Protection Agency has sent its next set of proposed biofuel volume mandates to the White House for review, signaling the long-delayed rule could be coming soon.”

“Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, the agency sets renewable volume obligations for different fuel types like biomass-based diesel, advanced and cellulosic biofuels. The Biden administration punted on releasing RVOs for 2026-2028 by the Nov. 1, 2024, statutory deadline, and indicated a final rule would likely not come out until December of this year,” Alvey reported. “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told senators Wednesday that the agency will engage in the rulemaking process over the next few months, with a public comment period before any final proposals.”

“‘We did inherit a blown deadline,’ Zeldin said. “‘We’re looking to not only resolve that deadline in setting RVOs, but to also look to the future and to operate going forward in a way where we don’t blow any deadlines moving forward,'” Alvey reported. “The EPA listed the volume targets for biomass-based diesel at 2.82 billion in 2023, 3.04 billion in 2024 and 3.35 billion in 2025. Biofuel industry groups have argued this last set of RVOs was set too low and did not properly reflect growth.”

“Ahead of the next set of RVOs, a unique coalition of oil, biofuel and farm groups have teamed up to present EPA with a unified volume request. It includes a 5.25-billion-gallon volume for biomass-based diesel, a 15-billion-gallon differential for ethanol and 10 billion Renewable Identification Number gallons for overall advanced biofuels,” Alvey reported. “The American Petroleum Institute, National Oilseed Processors Association, Clean Fuels Alliance, Renewable Fuels Association, American Soybean Association and Growth Energy have backed these volumes.”

Pro Farmer Editors reported that “the conjecture (not confirmed by EPA or other sources) is that EPA would announce a biodiesel mandate of 4.65 billion gallons, at least 600 million gallons below recommendations from a coalition of oil and biofuels groups. The industry has previously requested a mandate between 5.25 billion and 5.75 billion gallons. Perspective: 4.65 billion gallons would be a BIG jump from 3.35 billion gallons for 2025 and would be a floor… not a ceiling.”

EPA Will Also Rule on Backlog of Small Refinery Exemption Requests

Reuters’ Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw reported that “the Trump administration (also) plans to rule quickly on dozens of small U.S. refineries’ pending applications for exemptions from biofuel-blending requirements, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told lawmakers on Thursday.”

“There are 161 applications for exemptions from the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard pending after the Biden administration refrained from acting on them. The EPA’s decision will have significant implications for the multi-billion-dollar credit market that underpins the biofuel program,” Kelly and Renshaw reported. “‘None of these were getting approved at all in the last administration,’ Zeldin said in a congressional hearing. ‘We want to get caught up as quickly as we can.'”

“The Renewable Fuel Standard requires refiners to blend biofuels like corn-based ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply or buy renewable fuel credits, known as RINs, from those who do. But small refiners can petition the EPA to receive an exemption if they can show financial hardship,” Kelly and Renshaw reported. “In the first Trump administration, the EPA significantly increased the number of exemptions approved, driving down the price of the renewable fuel credits and angering the Farm Belt, which said the exemptions hurt a program that drove investment in the Midwest.”