The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) recently addressed a letter to Andrew Wheeler, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting action on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  Five outstanding issues that are of concern to the RFA include:-

• Implementing the Tenth Circuit Court decision on refinery exemptions
• Denying all 67 pending gap-year refinery exemption waiver petitions
• Deciding if 31 pending petitions for 2019 and 2020 comply with the Tenth Circuit Court criteria
• Publishing the proposed rule for 2021 renewable volume obligations
• Restoring the 500-million-gallon renewable fuel volume waived from the statutory 2016 RFS requirement

The RFA reminded EPA that the Agency is obligated to rule on petitions within a ninety-day period.  With all small refinery petitions considered, the EPA has the latitude to remove 4.6 billion gallons of blending requirements.  The Renewable Fuels Association also reminded EPA of the legal requirement to finalize the 2021 RVO by the end of November in accordance with previous commitments by the Agency.