The Biden administration finalized a rule Wednesday increasing the amount of biofuel that U.S. oil refiners are required to blend, but drew pointed criticism from the ethanol industry for not going far enough.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finalized rule requires refiners to increase the volume of renewable fuels they produce to 22.33 billion gallons per year by 2025 from 20.63 billion gallons in 2022, with incremental targets for 2023 and 2024.
This mandate falls short of the agency’s initial December proposal of 22.68 billion gallons by 2025, and left ethanol requirements at 15 billion gallons per year, prompting a rebuke from industry groups like the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA).
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“The [Renewable Fuel Standard] was intended to drive continual growth in all categories of renewable fuels well beyond 2022; instead, today’s final rule flatlines conventional renewable fuels at 15 billion gallons and misses a valuable opportunity to accelerate the energy sector’s transition to low- and zero-carbon,” Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the RFA, said in a press release. “By removing half a billion gallons of lower-carbon, lower-cost fuel, today’s rule needlessly forfeits an opportunity to further enhance U.S. energy security and provide more affordable options at the pump for American drivers.”
Tom Haag, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said the rule “falls short of the emission reductions and cost-saving benefits” of the proposed rule, in a press release.
Iowa’s secretary of agriculture, Republican Mike Naig, issued a statement lambasting the rule for making only a “slight improvement” in support for biodiesel and renewable diesels.
“The EPA’s final RFS volumes fail to meaningfully expand access to homegrown, domestic sources of energy like ethanol and biodiesel,” said Naig. In addition to setting targets below current production and usage levels, “the Biden Administration chose to do so at the expense of ethanol, therefore pitting one biofuel against another,” he continued.
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The EPA opted to maintain its current standard for ethanol because it expected demand for ethanol to fall, and that advanced biofuels would take on a greater market share, according to the finalized rule. The agency in April proposed a set of rules that it said would result in roughly 67% of all new light-duty vehicles, such as passenger cars, being all-electric by 2032.
“From day one, EPA has been committed to the growth of renewable fuels that play a critical role in diversifying our country’s energy mix and combatting climate change, all while providing good paying jobs and economic benefits to communities across the country,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release. “Today’s final rule reflects our efforts to ensure stability of the program for years to come, protect consumers from high fuel costs, strengthen the rural economy, support domestic production of cleaner fuels, and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
“The final standards reflect all advanced biofuel production projected to be available taking into consideration growth in production capacity, North American feedstock growth, and the application of a portion of advanced biofuel production to make up for a shortfall in conventional biofuels in meeting the total renewable fuel standard,” the EPA said a statement. “The increases across the years reflect that the majority of the additional production and feedstock capacity comes online in the later years, whereas the growth in the standards in the early years is more dependent on imports of advanced biofuel and/or its feedstocks.
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