The EPA is proposing to indefinitely extend the compliance deadlines for Renewable Volume Obligations for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
These general timeframes the agency suggested aren’t being met favorably by the U.S. ethanol industry.
Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor expresses her frustrations with this decision.
“We’re basically kicking the can down the road for an indefinite period of time—it’s frustrating,” she says. “It’s not what we want to hear. We need the agency to come out with RVOs for 2021 and 2022—we’ve got to get those out.”
She says it prolongs the uncertainty farmers and biofuel producers have continued to endure.
“As a business owner, you cannot plan because you don’t know if you’re an obligated party, you don’t know what your obligations are,” says Skor. “You have an indefinite period and it encourages and rewards oil refiners for not blending because they don’t blend, the price of RINs [renewable identification numbers] is manipulated, then they cry wolf. It’s a shame to see and our message continues to be, ‘EPA, you said you would get the RFS back on track, let’s get it back on track.’”
Skor says the next steps will be to share the message across the Midwest and through Congress.