RFS Roundup: 11th Hour Appeals to Revisit the 2014 RFS from Governors, Growers | Article

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has yet to release the 2014 Renewable Volume Obligates (RVOs) for the Renewable Fuel Standard. OMB has 90 days to review the rules prior to release, putting the final date for release sometime the week of November 17. While the White House has not yet formally extended the review, it is possible that an additional 90 days will be added to the review period, pushing the final decision into 2015. With a few days until the official deadline to release the decision, lawmakers and stakeholders are still petitioning the Administration to revisit the 2014 renewable fuel volumes.

On November 7, Governors Inslee (WA) and Brown (CA), urged OMB and the EPA to reconsider the fuel volumes, particularly those for advanced fuels – biodiesel, cellulosic and other fuels in the advanced category. Additionally, they ask the administration to carefully consider fuel volume targets through 2022. Despite meeting biodiesel targets and an expanding list of feedstocks for advanced feedstocks, Inslee and Brown comment that “EPA’s 2014 proposal damaged the policy stability that is essential to the success of the RFS, and we are concerned that the same action could be taken in coming years.”

On November 3, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), along with the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Sorghum Producers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, the Agricultural Retailers Association and AEM wrote to President Obama, asking him to intervene in the RFS process. They note that the proposed reduction is already “reverberating throughout the U.S. agriculture economy, and we expect this trend to continue if the targets and the methodology in the rule are not corrected.”