RFS 'Reset' Offers Chance For Needed Reform Of Program, Experts Say

摘要

Producers of advanced and cellulosic biofuels, along with others, are looking to EPA's forthcoming "reset" of renewable fuel standard (RFS) statutory fuel volumes as an opportunity to significantly improve the program, amid substantial uncertainty over the future of advanced biofuels. Under the RFS, refiners and importers of fuel must blend increasing volumes of biofuels into the fuel supply each year, until 2022 when statutory volumes expire and EPA is then entrusted with setting volumes itself. In establishing the program, Congress expected that advanced and cellulosic biofuels, which are assumed to obtain much greater greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions than conventional corn-based ethanol, would eventually supply much of the total renewable fuel volume.