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Oct 08, 2015
Last week a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators met with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, to push for more robust annual volume requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Senators expressed their support for more aggressive volume requirements in the Proposed Rule currently under review by EPA and the White House. Earlier this year, EPA proposed to lower the volumes of ethanol and advanced biofuels through 2016 compared with the levels Congress wrote into the 2007 statute. EPA proposed the lower targets because of short-term limits to more ethanol being added to gasoline and a slower-than-expected increase in the domestic advanced biofuel sector.
EPA has indicated it intends to issue a Final Rule by Nov. 30, 2015 that will include volume requirements for biodiesel for 2014-2017. The biodiesel industry, including the American Soybean Association (ASA), has submitted comments and continues to urge the Administration to increase the biodiesel volumes.
The EPA proposal calls for only 100 million gallons of annual growth in biodiesel, while the industry and ASA is advocating annual increases of 200-300 million gallons to reach total volumes of at least 2 billion gallons for 2016 and 2.3 billion gallons for 2017.
