EPA holding biofuel blending mandates steady due to pandemic: report

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to keep biofuel blending mandates at 2020 levels in the year ahead due to the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on fuel demand, Reuters reported Thursday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

Under the standards, fuel refiners are required to blend a certain amount of biofuels into the product, a number that can increase year to year. The Trump administration last year did not release a proposed 2021 mandate due to the pandemic, and the Biden administration is now set to release proposed levels for both 2021 and 2022 over the summer, according to the news service.

The current mandate requires refiners to add at least 20.09 billion gallons of renewables to the nation’s fuel supply. This requirement includes 15 billion gallons of convention biofuels or those derived from feedstocks such as corn.

The report comes at the same time the Biden administration, which has heavily promoted electric vehicles as a way of reducing U.S. carbon emissions, is reportedly set to release a proposal allowing EVs to receive tradable credits under the fuel standard, Reuters noted.

It also comes the day after a U.S. appeals court threw out three waivers issued in the final hours of the Trump presidency that made Sinclair Oil Corp. refineries exempt from the mandates. The Biden EPA moved to vacate them in April, saying the agency had not properly studied whether the refineries were eligible for the exemption.

“If these exemptions had been allowed to stand, they would have erased RFS [Renewable Fuel Standard] blending requirements for 260 million gallons of low-carbon renewable fuels, destabilizing rural communities and taking a step backward in the fight against climate change,” Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, said in a statement. “EPA did the right thing in April by requesting that these spurious exemptions be vacated, and we applaud the agency for honoring President Biden’s commitment to putting an end to the surge of illegitimate refinery waivers.”

An EPA spokesperson told The Hill the agency declined to comment on the report.