The Senate Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee scheduled a hearing next week on the recently published proposed rule on annual volume requirements for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

The hearing is June 18 and Janet McCabe, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for Air and Radiation, is expected to testify. American Soybean Association (ASA) leaders met with McCabe and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy earlier this year to discuss biodiesel issues. The Ranking Member of the Subcommittee is Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), who is a strong supporter of biodiesel and biofuels.

EPA proposes setting the biomass-based diesel and the total advanced biofuels volumes at the following levels:

• 2014 – 1.63 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel, 2.68 billion gallons of advanced biofuels
• 2015 – 1.7 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel, 2.9 billion gallons of advanced biofuels
• 2016 – 1.8 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel, 3.4 billion gallons of advanced biofuels
• 2017 – 1.9 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel

The volumes proposed by EPA are an improvement over the previous proposal, which would have set the Biomass-based Diesel requirements at 1.28 billion gallons for 2014 and 2015.

ASA believes the increases proposed by EPA will provide some benefit and certainty to the domestic biodiesel industry, although requiring slightly higher volumes are easily achievable by the U.S. biodiesel industry and would provide additional benefits. The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) requested biomass-based diesel volumes for 2014-2017 be set at 1.75, 2.1, 2.4, and 2.7 billion gallons respectively.

There will be a 60 day public comment period and EPA will hold a public hearing in Kansas City on June 25. EPA intends to finalize the rule by Nov. 30, 2015.  ASA will be represented at the Public Hearing and will develop comments to submit.