US EPA establishes first nationwide Renewable Fuel Standard
Here we go.
The EPA announced the final regulations for its Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program yesterday. The EPA has been responsible for making sure that gas sold in America has at least a little bit of biofuel in it since the Energy Policy Act of 2005 passed. The EPA says that this Renewable Fuel Standard program "will increase the volume of renewable fuel required to be blended into gasoline, starting with 4.0 billion gallons in calendar year 2006 and nearly doubling to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012." Also, the RFS program "will increase the volume of renewable fuel required to be blended into gasoline, starting with 4.0 billion gallons in calendar year 2006 and nearly doubling to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012."
The EPA says renewable fuels are any "produced from plant or animal products or wastes, as opposed to fossil fuel sources." This can be ethanol or biodiesel or something else. Small refiners and oil refiners in Alaska, Hawaii and noncontiguous U.S. territories don't need to follow the RFS program for now. The rest, i.e., "any party that produces gasoline for use in the U.S., including refiners, importers, and blenders (other than oxygenate blenders)," will need to meet the standard starting this year. If producers don't make biofuels themselves, the program includes tradable credits "for both renewable fuels blended into conventional gasoline or diesel and those used in their neat (unblended) form as motor vehicle fuel."
More information is here. You can probably guess that the Renewable Fuels Association likes the RFS.
[Source: EPA, Domestic Fuel]
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