The Office of the Inspector General (IG) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report this week concluding “the EPA has not met certain statutory requirements to identify the environmental impacts of the Renewable Fuel Standard.” The report goes on to note that because of the missed reports, “Congress and other stakeholders lack key information on biofuel impacts needed to make science-based decisions about RFS.”
In June 2016, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on the implementation of the RFS where Members of Congress expressed a bipartisan interest in receiving more information from the EPA on the environmental impacts of the RFS to help them assess whether the original intent of the law is being achieved and at what cost.
Panel Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) observed during that hearing “it’s been nearly a decade since the RFS was last revised by Congress…and a lot has changed in the interim.” Ranking Minority Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) also noted that questions remain “whether increasing biofuel production will achieve the program’s important environmental goals ….”
According to the OIG report, EPA claimed to have missed its statutorily required triennial reporting requirement to Congress because of “competing priorities” and because Congress did not provide funding for the report. However, as the OIG noted, “regardless, the statutory requirement to complete the report does not hinge on yearly, earmarked funding.”
EPA also argued that its requirement to report every three years constituted too short of a timeframe for significant scientific advances to occur. The OIG responded, “if the EPA finds there have been no relevant scientific advances, it could simply report out on that fact; lack of scientific advances does not eliminate the EPA’s reporting requirement. Additionally, the EPA has no record of any communication between the EPA and Congress regarding the reporting requirement.”
The report also shows that EPA failed to conduct a required “anti-backsliding” analysis on the RFS to ensure that new regulations intended to address one problem do not actually make other environmental problems worse. There was to be an original analysis in 2009 and a follow-up implementation plan in 2010 based on that analysis to provide measures to mitigate backsliding effects of new regulations. EPA is now proposing to complete those requirements by September 2024 – more than 14 years after the deadline.
NCC President Mike Brown said, “This report, and nearly a decade of interference in the feed and fuel markets, further confirms what we’ve known all along: the RFS is broken and it is time for Congress to reform it.”
The Inspector General Report can be found here: https://www.epa.gov/office-inspector-general/report-epa-has-not-met-certain-statutory-requirements-identify
