The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a proposal which discusses a variety of approaches for setting the 2014 standards, and includes a number of production and consumption ranges for key categories of biofuel covered by the RFS program. The proposal seeks comment on a range of total renewable fuel volumes for 2014, covering both ethanol and non-ethanol fuels, and proposes a level within that range for total renewable fuel at 15.21 billion gallons. For advanced biofuel, EPA proposes to reduce the statutory volume to the sum of the cellulosic volume, the biomass-based diesel requirement, and the additional non-ethanol advanced biofuels that could reasonably be expected to be available and consumed, at a level of 2.20 billion gallons.
Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), as amended by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set the annual standards for the Renewable Fuel Standard program (RFS) for each year. This regulatory action proposes to establish the annual percentage standards for 2014 for cellulosic, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuels that apply to gasoline and diesel produced or imported in year 2014. EPA is also required to determine the applicable national volume of biomass-based diesel that will be required in 2015, as the statute does not specify the applicable volumes for years after 2012.