American corn and soybean growers were both left disappointed after the US Environmental Protection Agency announced its final renewable fuel volume obligations for 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Formally announced Wednesday, the new obligations under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard will require 2.82 billion gallons of bio and renewable diesel to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply in 2023, unchanged from the EPA’s preliminary rule released back in December. For 2024 and 2025, the requirements rise to 3.04 billion and 3.35 billion gallons, versus the EPA’s December targets of 2.89 billion and 2.95 billion.
For conventional corn-based ethanol, the EPA set an implied 15.25-billion-gallon requirement for 2023, up 250 million gallons from its original proposal. For 2024 and 2025, the EPA held the implied volume level at 15 billion gallons, despite initially calling for 15.25 billion gallons for those two years.
The bio and renewable diesel requirements were particularly criticized as being too low when they were originally proposed by the EPA back in December, and the small increases for 2024 and 2025 announced today did not win any friends either.
The American Soybean Association said in a release the total volumes for 2025 represent just slightly more than 20% growth over the 2022 biomass-based diesel obligations previously set by EPA. However, those totals only match current production levels and do not actually account for growth in the industry, it said. The Energy Information Administration predicts an increase in biomass-based diesel production of over 800 million gallons in 2023 alone. The final rule offers volume increases of just 590 million gallons over the course of the entire three years, it added.
“This announcement is a letdown for soy growers. It threatens the success of the biomass-based diesel industry by significantly dialing back annual increases in volume obligations and failing to account for the progress being made in biofuels investment and growth,” said American Soybean Association President Daryl Cates, a soybean grower from Illinois. “Farmers and biomass-based diesel producers face real, concerning consequences from low RFS volumes that do not reflect current production and demand, and we’re disappointed in this lack of support for the industry."
On the corn side, American Corn Growers Association President Tom Haag said the final EPA requirements “fall short of the emission reductions and cost-saving benefits the higher proposed ethanol volumes would have provided.”
