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Ethanol groups still waiting for RFS rule to become public

Critical biofuels policies remain under review by the Trump administration, and some ethanol groups are concerned time is running out. 

Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, says the EPA Administrator has expressed the final rule for the Renewable Fuels Standard will be in place by November 1 to allow time for public comment. “We’re sort of in limbo right now with RVOs and small refinery exemptions (SRE) petitions. There is just a lot of anxiety and pent-up energy in the industry as we all wait for some signal.”

Cooper says his biggest concern is how the EPA will handle more than 160 outstanding SRE exemptions. “There are an enormous amount of petitions that are sitting at EPA that have not been decided, and how EPA decides those petitions could have enormous consequences and implications for the renewable fuels industry and our partners in agriculture.”

But, American Coalition for Ethanol CEO Brian Jennings tells Brownfield, “I’d rather see a good, strong RVO than having a not very good (rule) come out early. I’m not going to get wound up on the timing.”

Executive Director of the Nebraska Ethanol Board Ben Rhodes says a strong rule will allow the Cornhusker state to meet production demand. “If we do increase the RVO’s and get the robust volumes that we’ve requested, I think you’ll see the production in Nebraska go up from our slightly over 2 billion gallons to over 2.5 billion gallons.”  

He says Nebraska hasn’t met its production capacity recently because of previous RVO levels.

Several ethanol industry groups recently sent a letter to EPA saying that 2026 levels should be set at no less than 15 billion gallons for conventional ethanol and 5.25 billion gallons for biomass-based diesel.

Brownfield interviewed the leaders at this year’s International Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo.