EPA sends final biofuel blending mandate rule to White House for review
NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent a final rule on the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that oil refiners must blend into their fuel over the next three years to the White House for review, according to a federal website, putting it on track to meet a June deadline to finalize the mandates.
The EPA’s proposed rule, unveiled in December, increased volume mandates and – for the first time – included a pathway for electric vehicle manufacturers to generate lucrative credits from using biofuels to charge EVs.
It is unclear whether the final rule sent to the White House this week included any changes.
Under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), oil refiners must blend billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s fuel mix, or buy tradable credits from those that do.
Under the December proposal, oil refiners would be required to add 20.82 billion gallons of biofuels to their fuel in 2023, 21.87 billion gallons in 2024, and 22.68 billion gallons in 2025.
Those volumes would include more than 15 billion gallons per year of conventional biofuels like corn-based ethanol, with the rest made up by advanced fuels like those made from switchgrass, animal fats, or methane from dairy farms and landfills.
The proposal to include credits for EV makers would recognize the possibility that EVs could be charged using power from the grid generated by biofuels like landfill or agricultural methane.
The EPA proposal foresaw EV manufacturers, such as Tesla (TSLA.O), generating as many as 600 million credits called e-RINs in 2024, and 1.2 billion of them by 2025. Under the scheme, one e-RIN would be generated for every 6.5 biofuel-powered kilowatt hours in an EV battery.
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