RFA Reacts to EPA Final Rule

The Renewable Fuels Association today expressed disappointment in the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule for 2020 Renewable Fuel Standard blending requirements, arguing that the rule opens the door for small refinery exemptions (SREs) to continue eroding RFS volumes and destroying demand for America’s biofuel producers and farmers.

“After EPA’s overwrought abuse of the SRE program in recent years, agency officials had a chance to finally make things right with this final rule—but they blew it,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “EPA’s rule fails to deliver on President Trump’s commitment to restore integrity to the RFS, and it fails to provide the market certainty desperately needed by ethanol producers, farmers, and consumers looking for lower-cost, cleaner fuel options. While the final rule is an improvement over the original proposal, it still does not guarantee that the law’s 15-billion-gallon conventional biofuel blending requirement will be fully enforced by EPA in 2020.”