The National Biodiesel Board is asking Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler to fully account for small refinery exemptions in the annual Renewable Fuel Standard rules and “end the demand destruction for biodiesel.” 

The NBB delivered a letter to the agency on Oct. 17. In addition to asking for the accounting of the small refinery exemptions, the NBB asks EPA to set RFS biomass-based diesel volumes for 2020 at 2.8 billion gallons, consistent with the industry’s demonstrated ability to produce fuel. 

“EPA must end the demand destruction for biodiesel – not as part of a deal to change the RFS rules; rather, as an integral part of the agency’s duty to ensure that the RFS volumes it sets are met,” writes NBB Vice President of Federal Affairs Kurt Kovarik in the letter.

The letter thanks Acting Administrator Wheeler for increasing transparency around the agency’s granting of small refinery exemptions. However, the agency’s data dashboard now makes it easy to calculate the biodiesel demand lost to these exemptions, the letter points out.

“Between 2015 and 2017, the demand destruction for biomass-based diesel is more than 300 million gallons,” Kovarik writes in the letter. “Independent analysis further substantiates the demand destruction for biodiesel and renewable diesel,” he adds. 

Made from an increasingly diverse mix of resources such as recycled cooking oil, soybean oil and animal fats, biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning diesel replacement that can be used in existing diesel engines without modification. It is the nation’s first domestically produced, commercially available advanced biofuel. 

Source: National Biodiesel Board