Administration proposes boosting biofuel quotas
Ethanol producers and farmstate leaders blasted a Trump administration proposal that would force refiners to blend more biofuel into petroleum next year, arguing the modest planned increase is undercut by EPA waivers exempting refineries from the mandate.
Under the Environmental Protection Agency proposal released Tuesday, refiners would have to blend 19.88 billion gallons of biofuels next year, a 3.1 percent increase over current quotas. The EPA is proposing to maintain a 15-billion-gallon quota for conventional renewable fuels such as corn-based ethanol, the maximum allowed under federal law.
The proposed 2019 target for advanced biofuels would be 4.88 billion gallons, including at least 381 million gallons of cellulosic renewable fuel, such as ethanol made from switchgrass. The EPA also outlined a potential 2.43 billion gallon quota for biodiesel in 2020, a 15.7 percent increase from the 2.1 billion gallons required in 2019.
But that failed to satisfy agricultural leaders, who say the proposed increases are an illusion as long as the EPA keeps exempting small refineries from the mandates. Under federal law, small facilities facing a “disproportionate economic hardship” can win waivers from the annual biofuel blending requirements.
“This is a status quo proposal for ethanol, and the status quo is bad,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Renewable Fuels Association. As long as the EPA “is granting small refinery exemptions left and right,” Shaw said, “the ethanol number isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
The EPA proposal doesn’t include a previously drafted plan that would require larger refineries to use more biofuel to make up for smaller refineries’ exemptions.
Agency officials briefly considered incorporating an additional 1.5 billion gallons of biofuel requirements into the proposed quotas with the aim of making up for potential exemptions granted to small refineries. Because that would have meant redistributing the biofuel burden to larger, non-exempted refineries, oil industry leaders complained, and in response, the EPA jettisoned the plan, at least for now.
For more than a decade, a law known as the Renewable Fuel Standard has compelled refiners to use renewable fuel, with the EPA required to set the precise annual quotas. The new proposal keeps the EPA on track to finalize renewable fuel quotas by Nov. 30, a deadline under federal law.
“I’ve traveled to numerous states and heard firsthand about the importance of the RFS to farmers and local communities across the country,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a news release. “Issuing the proposed rule on time meets Congress’s statutory deadlines, which the previous administration failed to do, and provides regulatory certainty to all impacted stakeholders.”
President Donald Trump has been struggling to strike a balance on biofuel policy, bridging the competing interests of Midwestern farmers and the oil industry.
Some independent oil refiners have asked the Trump administration to ease the biofuel mandate, complaining about the cost of tradable credits known as Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, that are used to show they have fulfilled annual blending quotas. Meanwhile, agricultural interests argue the program is working as Congress intended and any revisions would hurt the Corn Belt.
The EPA proposal divided biofuel advocates. While it angered ethanol producers and advocates, supporters of biodiesel and next-generation alternatives were encouraged by planned increases.
The Trump administration’s proposed jump in quotas for biodiesel typically made from soybeans recognizes the industry’s “ability to produce higher volumes,” said Kurt Kovarik, vice president of federal affairs at the National Biodiesel Board.