Ethanol Blog

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- Clean Fuels Alliance America told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it will sue the agency for what the group says is a failure to issue 2026 Renewable Fuel Standard volumes in a timely manner, in a notice sent to the EPA on Wednesday.

Clean Fuels said in a news release that by statute EPA is required to finalize volumes 14 months before the start of the compliance year.

For 2026 volumes that means the deadline would come at the end of October, https://www.dtnpf.com/….

The White House Office of Management and Budget released the spring 2024 unified agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions on June 28. That set out a timeline for EPA to propose the 2026 RFS volumes by March 2025 and finalize the rule by December 2025.

"EPA's failure to timely issue the 2026 RFS volumes compounds another issue: EPA set the volumes for 2023 through 2025 too low," Clean Fuels said in the letter sent to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

"As explained in Clean Fuels' petition for reconsideration of the 2024 and 2025 volumes, EPA set biomass-based diesel and advanced volumes for those years significantly below what the industry can achieve. The result has been a crash in RIN (renewable identification numbers) prices, shuttered production facilities, and cancellations of planned facility expansions. While EPA can and should reconsider and revise its 2024 and 2025 volumes, it should at a minimum set a timely 2026 volume."

Kurt Kovarik, vice president of federal affairs for Clean Fuels Alliance America said in a news release the RFS volumes need to be set on time for biofuels industry investors to have certainty.

"Members of both the U.S. House and Senate have urged EPA to issue timely 2026 RFS volumes to mitigate the damage from the agency's miscalculation of volumes for 2023, 2024 and 2025," he said.

"Stakeholder organizations earlier this year asked EPA to ensure it met the deadline for the 2026 rule. The biodiesel, renewable diesel and SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) industry needs EPA to get the program back on track to support our growth. Clean Fuels provided EPA a great deal of data on our growth to support our petition to revise the 2024 and 2025 RFS volumes for biomass-based diesel and advanced biofuels. There isn't any practical reason that would prevent the agency from meeting the legal deadline for the 2026 RFS rule."

Thirty-seven members of the House urged EPA to issue the 2026 rule on July 11, while 18 senators did the same in a letter sent to Regan on June 11.

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

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