US EPA 'Analyzing' Potential Shift in RFS Obligation from Refiners to Blenders
By Herman Wang, Platts, McGraw Hill Financial.
The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering a request by several independent refiners to shift the responsibility for complying with the federal biofuels mandate to blenders, a top agency official said Wednesday.
But any such move would not be addressed in the 2017 Renewable Fuel Standard that lays out the coming year's required blending volumes, which are due to be finalized by November 30, he said.
"We are analyzing it," Chris Grundler, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, testified before two House of Representatives oversight subcommittees. "We decided that ... such a major change in the regulation and the law should not be part of this annual rulemaking process."