RFA Chief Knocks EPA Over Failure to Address Illegal Cut in 2016 RVO

by Jeff Barber (Opisnet) PA's failure to include in its proposed 2019 Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) an estimated 500 million gal of renewable fuels that a federal appeals court last year said the agency illegally excluded from its 2016 biofuel targets may be headed toward another round of litigation, a biofuels industry veteran said Tuesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last July held that EPA incorrectly interpreted language in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that permits it to reduce annual biofuel volume targets based on "inadequate domestic supply" and remanded the 2016 RVO to the agency. Biofuel industry officials say the court ruling should require EPA to add increase future RVOs by about 500 million gal to address that year's shortfall.

But in its proposed 2019 RVO released earlier on Tuesday, the agency opted not to address the court decision, saying it is "currently considering a number of issues raised by the need to respond to the court's remand in a separate process from this annual rulemaking."

While EPA said it will not accept comments on the court order as part of the RVO proceeding, it said it "understands there is a compelling need to respond to the remand and intends to expeditiously move ahead with a separate rule to resolve this matter."

Because the court ruling was issued after EPA had released its proposed 2018 RVO, Dinneen said an argument could have been made that it was too late to address it before the final numbers were released in November.

But they "only get one free pass," Dinneen said. "They absolutely should have addressed this in [the 2019 RVO] and the fact that they didn't suggests that [EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt has no intention of doing that. And he does not have the freedom to ignore a court order.

The RFA chief also raised concerns about EPA's disclosure that the number of carryover RINs has risen from 2.2 billion in November to about 3.06 billion currently, largely because of the small refiner waivers.

A RIN bank of that size, Dinneen said, means that about 20% of the 2019 obligation could be met through the purchase of carryover RINs, rather than actual biofuel volumes. READ MORE