The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), has asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce the mandate on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in an acknowledgment of a widening gap between government policy goals and the reality at gas stations. This request is a significant policy reversal by the RFA.
This year’s draft mandate requires the sale of 16.55 billion gallons of biofuel inside the United States. Citing “uncertainty” over how to meet this goal, the RFA advised the government to pursue a “reduction in the overall RFS” in a letter to EPA. This was the first time the association recommended cutting the total renewable fuel mandate, the association confirmed. “We’re trying to be reasonable,” Bob Dinneen, RFA president, told the Financial Times.
The mandate has become increasingly hard to achieve. Flat U.S. gasoline demand limits how much ethanol can be blended. Oil companies will not sell fuel containing more than 10-percent ethanol, creating a “blend wall.” The RFA said it asked Washington for the reduction because production of “advanced biofuels” made from biomass other than grain was falling short of its 2.75-billion-gallon portion of the mandate. The biofuels mandate, which stood at 4.7 billion gallons in 2007, is scheduled to keep rising beyond this year’s level to 36 billion gallons in 2022. EPA has never before reduced the overall mandate.
