By Paige Anderson
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday released its draft renewable volume obligations (RVOs) under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The proposal includes volume targets for 2023, 2024 and 2025 in all four categories of renewable fuel and a supplemental standard for 2023 to address the remand of the 2016 annual rules by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
The draft rule also proposes several regulatory changes to the RFS program, including regulations governing the generation of qualifying renewable electricity and other modifications intended to improve the program’s implementation.
While NACS is still reviewing the 600-plus page proposal, one part of the proposed rule stands out as a problem for convenience and fuel retailers—the proposed e-RINs section.
In the draft rule, the EPA’s proposed approach would permit car manufacturers to generate e-RINs based on the light-duty electric vehicles they sell by establishing contracts with partners that generate electricity from qualifying biogas (renewable electricity generation).
NACS opposes this part of the proposal and believes that the incentive of an e-RIN should go to the entity providing publicly accessible EV charging to consumers, such as fuel retailers. As with the RFS program, incentives should benefit consumers, and the only way that can happen is if the e-RIN is generated as close as possible in the supply chain to the consumer transaction.
Public comments on the draft proposed rule are due February 10, 2023, and the agency will hold public hearings on January 10 and 11, 2023. More information about the proposal can be found on the
EPA’s website.
| Proposed Volume Targets (billion RINs)* |
|
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
| Cellulosic biofuel |
0.72 |
1.42 |
2.13 |
| Biomass-based diesel |
2.82 |
2.89 |
2.95 |
| Advanced biofuel |
5.82 |
6.62 |
7.43 |
| Renewable fuel |
20.82 |
21.87 |
22.68 |
| Supplemental standard |
0.25 |
n/a |
n/a |
* One RIN is equivalent to one ethanol-equivalent gallon of renewable fuel.
| Proposed Percentage Standards |
|
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
| Cellulosic biofuel |
0.41% |
0.82% |
1.23% |
| Biomass-based diesel |
2.54% |
2.60% |
2.67% |
| Advanced biofuel |
3.33% |
3.80% |
4.28% |
| Renewable fuel |
11.92% |
12.55% |
13.05% |
| Supplemental standard |
0.14% |
n/a |
n/a |
Paige Anderson is NACS director of government relations. She can be reached at panderson@convenience.org.