The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to add a new electric vehicle component to the nation’s biofuels program, the Renewable Fuel Standard.
The EPA announced a rulemaking Thursday proposing biofuel blending volume requirements for refiners for 2023-2025. The rulemaking also proposes regulations covering the generation of renewable electricity made from renewable biomass that is used for transportation fuel in electric vehicles.
EPA PROPOSES RAISING BIOFUEL BLENDING IN 2023 AND BEYOND IN WIN FOR CORN LOBBY
Its rulemaking proposes the creation of an “eRIN” program, which derives its name from the RFS’s existing regime of “Renewable Identification Numbers” for compliance. The regulatory changes would allow participants to generate eRINs produced from qualifying renewable biomass and used as a transportation fuel.
The agency said it expects the incentive to use qualifying renewable electricity in electric vehicles “would, in turn, incentivize increased vehicle electrification that would continue to allow for increased generation of qualifying renewable electricity” and proposed implementing the program beginning in 2024.
The rulemaking also accommodates other key components of President Joe Biden’s energy agenda.
Biden has urged U.S. oil refiners to increase their capacity to manufacture gasoline, as limited capacity has constrained retail fuel markets and helped to drive prices higher. Refinery trade groups largely oppose the RFS and blame it for leading companies to convert petroleum refineries into biofuel manufacturing facilities to stay up to speed with the shift away from fossil fuels.
Those conversions, along with closures, have limited refining capacity.
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The EPA said it’s seeking comment on how its rule “can intersect with continued viability of domestic oil refining assets, including merchant refineries,” as well as how best to support emerging fuels such as sustainable aviation fuels and hydrogen generated from non-emitting sources of electricity.
The EPA said its proposal would improve U.S. energy security and enable the reduction in oil imports by some 160,000 to 180,000 barrels of oil per year between 2023 and 2025.
