Sioux Falls, SD – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) June 21 finalized Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) for the 2023-2025 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance years, including restoring the final 250 million gallons in remanded volume by the DC Circuit Court in 2017.
American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) CEO Brian Jennings issued the following reaction to EPA’s final rule:
“If EPA’s goal with the Renewable Fuel Standard is to maximize reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector, today’s final rule falls short by arbitrarily limiting conventional biofuel use to 15 billion gallons in 2024 and 2025 compared to the Agency’s proposal of 15.25 billion gallons for each of those years.
"Higher blending targets would enable fuels such as E15 and E85 to quickly displace carbon pollution from gasoline, but EPA’s proposal will rein in those opportunities.
“We are supportive of finalizing the 250-million-gallon remedy as a supplemental requirement for 2023 and agree with removing the controversial eRIN proposal from the final rule.
“ACE’s experience with EPA’s oversight of the RFS over time requires us to remain vigilant to ensure mismanagement or unwarranted waivers are not used to undermine the physical blending of ethanol that has required litigation to rectify in previous years.
"We will also continue to press the Agency to once and for all update its antiquated greenhouse gas (GHG) model assumptions about corn ethanol.
"We continue to urge EPA to follow the science and adopt the latest GREET model for its lifecycle modeling, consistent with what Congress required of Treasury in the Inflation Reduction Act 45Z clean fuel production tax credit.”